Also, the value of Excel will grow if teaming up starts...

We have to be careful what is put in place here. If the target is to disrupt the top 3 winners, how does this differ from the "Masters are too good" problem discussed in the following thread? https://www.warzone.com/Forum/557523-problem-free-wins?Offset=0

As Masters has both (a) strong players, and (b) recruited to exceed in CW, they deserve to be winning, so changing the rules so other clans have a better shot at toppling them is a bit odd feeling. And let's be honest, if you change the rules, they'll just adapt and as long as it's still skill based in the end, they're likely to still end out in the top 3 at least. If we reduce it to 20, they're still going to keep winning 95% of their games, just with 20 players instead of 40 - so likely still winning but with less coordinated effort required, and maybe the other clans will be closer in the race, but still losing.

MH is similar, has lots of strong players and high participation - so essentially everything I just said above for Masters applies to MH as well. TSFH has a couple good players and a bunch of mediocre ones and medium participation. Imho, TSFH is tbh within reach of the other clans if they got serious. Compete either on participation, skill (win more) or both.

But if the target of a rule change is to disrupt the top 3, in essence topple M or MH ... think we need a new goal. It should just focus on making things fair.

But right now M & MH vying for 1st & 2nd is b/c they have the highest # of skilled players, so change the rules up, and that's not going to change. And if they're actually making use of the 40 player cap, bringing it down to 20 means the folks they just recruited may leave and start up a new clan. Essentially this breaks up M into M1 & M2, and MH into MH1 and MH2, and guess what ... they'll end up ranking something like this:

#1 M1
#2 MH1
#3 M2
#4 MH2

So problem not solved?

M2 & MH2 may end up being new clans made to compete in CW. Or maybe the players that leave will end up joining Python, THD or Excel (just throwing out random clan names), but they'll also be displacing players already playing in those clans (b/c they have to if they want to be competitive in CW, which of course they do as that's why they joined M & MH to begin with).

Really don't think shrinking the cap is the answer. Also don't think the goal of displacing the top clans should be the goal. If they're the best clans, (a) they deserve it, and (b) they'll just adjust to the new rules and remain at the top.

I agree - the goal is not to disrupt the the top competitors; I obviously want the M'Hunters to keep doing well personally. My goal is to make the playing field more open, and more free.

As someone who will be a lawyer, I can't help but make a legal analogy. The current system, in my opinion, puts an unfair barrier to entry to a new individual/clan trying to join the "market" of clan wars. If this is the real world, I'd argue that this unfair barrier to entry, in effect, has created a monopoly in certain clans, which raises anti-trust concerns. Obviously this is not the real world, and Fizzer is not beholden to make the system as free and open as possible.

But, all things being equal, it should at least be the goal right? Especially if it helps warzone too? I legitimately think more people would play if this issue is solved.

Just get rid of member cap and we are good to go

meanhile clans with 242 members ;)

Also, personally, I think droggelbelcher's solution is the best. It opens the playing field, while also not penalizing the top competitors. If the M'Hunters and Masters have 40 good players for Clan Wars, surely they will have 20 good players logically. And multiple teams means that there won't be terrible competition within a clan.

The problem is, as you stated, that the top clans have both numbers AND good players. Cap of 20 would actually not change their placement, it would just prevent some of their players from playing. Multiple teams is an option, but fairly big effort to implement for Fizzer I assume.

What it will do is bring clans with big numbers but not a mass of great players down (like TLA, Excel, Saber-rattlers, TSFH as well) and clans with less numbers but lot of great players up (like Python). That effect however would be MUCH smaller than you think, if even noticeable for most clans. We were 4th last season with about 300 wins, all but 22 of those were scored by our top20 players. That number is likely to be even smaller for most clans below us.

Idea of CW is for it to be the first place where you go play semi-competitively, lets keep it so that everyone who wants can do that.

@Shamu
Agree with you on points except the proposed solution, Shamu. So in that sense, I agree w/Naviiso, that essentially this pretty much only affects Masters & MH, everyone else stays roughly the same, and how Masters & MH adjust to the new system must just crowd out all the other clans even more.

How would multiple teams work? Would these intraclan teams compete against each other or just other clans?

And if we went that route, is it still Clan Wars or is it just Team Wars now?

And doesn't that just result in the rankings I stated before?

1st place - Masters team 1
2nd place - MH team 1
3rd place - Masters team 2
4th place - MH team 2
5th place - TSFH (don't think they can split into a second team)
6th place and after - everything else stays more or less the same.

He could get rid of the player cap and simply restrict it to 20 clan wars games per clan per day. This would make it more accessible to smaller clans and still allow a lot of players in larger clans to participate. This would allow people to take a break or go on vacation without feeling like they are letting down the clan.

Some other changes that might improve participation:
1. Make getting all the territory rewards achievable for more clans
2. Offer an alternate reward for non-Idle players

He could get rid of the player cap and simply restrict it to 20 clan wars games per clan per day.

20 wins per day, not games. A clan can still play once per player per day, but only 20 wins per day would be counted. Hopefully there would be a mechanism where playing more would still gain benefit outside of the CW Ranking, perhaps towards the Territory Rewards or something of that nature (rewards where you aren't competing with others for, just achieve the criteria and your clan gets it), but wins counted towards the territories on the map for CW Rank are capped at 20 per day. This way playing more than 20 games still has benefit (can make up for a few lost games) so we're still rewarding participation.

For "Territory Rewards", maybe total # of wins could be tracked separately are rewards based on 1st win, 5th win, 10th win, 50th win, 100th win, 200th win, etc, rather than 1st territory, 3rd territory, 5th territory, 10th territory, etc, and the territories would count only for Rank.

I think it's important that players don't have to track and be informed about how many games their clan has played on a given day to know whether you're even eligible to play a game or not. If you meet your own eligibility requirements (only once per 24h period) then you should be able to play, just a matter of whether a win would count toward Rank or not.

It's already a pain in the ascii to deal with the factors such as 'play once per 24h' (which likely isn't your native time zone) + the 4h timeslots + # of and which templates available in that particular slot, so we don't need yet another factor to work around (# of games played by your clan in the 24h period).

https://www.warzone.com/Forum/538492-καλλιστηιs-suggestions-clan-wars

The biggest barrier in CW for players in a clan is the lack of timeslots and "bad" reward. Being online 3x for half an hour gives you a ~42% chance to be online for CW. Meaning that for good participation you pretty much need to set an alarm clock. The reward for participating in CW is like 5 coins/ season for non-idlers, not worth it.

Though that is not the main problem. The main problem is, that most "casual" players aren't in a clan. That is why participation is so low. Mortality of players in WZ is so big, that level 1 players who join a clan are very likely to go inactive, closing a clan.

The solution for problem 1: more timeslots, add attackers, increase coin rewards in CW.
The solution from problem 2: level limit for open clans, increase clan limit, allows clan members to promote someone to be a manager if all managers/ clan leader are inactive for more than 1 week.

How about adding value to clan wins?

Thank you everyone, this has been an insightful discussion.

It seems, with the exception of Arrow, we all agree there should be some limitation on the # of players/games each clan should play per day. Otherwise, without a limitation, Clan Wars incentivizes brainless recruiting - literally just letting anyone onto your team without making personal connections with them. That defeats the whole purpose of building comradery within a team imo.

I'll call this limitation x. Currently x = 40 players/team. But I argue that it is too high, and that the unit (measured in players per team) is incorrect. But what is a reasonable limitation? It should be judged relative to the game itself.

Now, if this were League of Legends, maybe x = 40 players/team is a good limitation. Hell, maybe even make it 80. But this game is not league; we simply do not have comparable activity levels. I think we can all agree that a 1000 player/team limit would be an unfair barrier to enter clan wars. But, from what I've seen, 40 is too.

The M'Hunters have the highest activity of any clan; we average about 32 players per day. But we come nowhere close to this limit; just 80% of it. That's why x = 40 is unreasonable, for this game, at this moment.

But also, I argue, it's the wrong unit of measure. I agree with what Master Jz was saying - I think it should be measured in total # of GAMES per day. That way, larger clans can substitute out players. This is an advantage for large clans; Speaking as someone who plays clan wars every day, it is a pain in the butt to play it everyday. Substitutions would be so unbelievably amazing for larger clans.

What I propose is changing x. Instead of a limitation of 40 PLAYERS / day, make it 20 GAMES / day. I disagree with making it 20 wins per day. You'd just have many clans getting exactly 20 wins/day, which isn't all that interesting. 20 games per day makes an element of risk. There are consequences to playing; if you lose, that's 1 less win for your team. There should be consequences in any good, fair game, even if it's more casual.

IN CONCLUSION - I want the limit changed from 40 Players/day to 20 Games per/day. This would incentivize more people to play clan wars, and remove what I perceive to be an unfair barrier to entry. It would also allow substitutions, which would be amazing too.

Edited 6/23/2021 07:57:12

Maybe another option could be not to limit x=40, but additionally take into account the winrate.
This would allow all players inside a clan to participate in CW - on the other hand it would take into account the "quality" of the players.
To avoid preference of very small clans with very good players we need a base cap like bevor.

Base: First x=20 wins per day: each win counts 100%
Addon: Up to additional 20 wins per day according to winrate.

Example:
a. Small clan wins 15 out of 20 games => win rate = 75%
Base: 15 wins
Addon: 0 (additional) wins * 75% = 0 wins
Total: 15 wins

b. Big clan 35 wins out of 50 games => win rate 70%
Base: 20 wins
Addon: 15 (additional) wins: 15 * 70% = 11 wins
Total: 31 wins


c. Huge clan 50 wins out of 100 games => win rate 50%
Base: 20 wins
Addon: 30 (additional) wins, but max 20 are counted: 20 * 50% = 10 wins
Total: 30 wins

Indeed it is possible to fine tune the base / addon parameters.

There is no better feeling than making your clan lose points.

Edited 6/23/2021 14:34:46

Yes, indeed you can lower your clan points by losing. But if you use a function, that is steadily increasing by each win (even with a function like log(x)) then you preference huge clans - even if their quality is low.

With the combined approach you have
* base part without reduction risk
* additional part with reduction risk

Edited 6/23/2021 15:00:06

The problem with limiting to 20 games/day is that we're back to needing clans limit who plays. You're best off limiting CW activity to the strongest 20 players and just having them focus on playing every day.

Imho, this goes against the spirit of CW, which is "anyone can play". Anyone can join a clan, anyone can play a CW game each day. With a 40 player/40 game per day limit, this is pretty much true across the board.

Also having to build a schedule for who plays on which days, etc, is work. This isn't the coveted CL, this is casual CW, we shouldn't need to plan, it should just be a matter of whoever shows up plays. Many already agree that fitting into the timeslots in PITA enough, nevermind adding coordination with who plays on which days & how many games have been played on a given day. CW is already kind of a chore, and imho it needs to be made less or a chore, not more.

Still think 20 wins/day is a better option so everyone can play, everyone can contribute, everyone has fun. We won't see several clans with 20 wins each day b/c few clans have that level of activity, and even if they achieve on a couple days, no clan will consistently sustain that throughout the entire season.

Just saw Jellybean's post. The idea of using WR is interesting & I think has merit here. Minimally, it's the first option that blends leveling the playing field without essentially just limiting/punishing the top 2-3 clans (and likely forcing the top 2 clans to break into smaller clans just to continue allowing everyone to compete). With that in mind, the ratios could even be adjusted ... 20 may not be the magic number. Maybe it's 10 @ 100%, then 10 @ 75%, then 10 @ 50% ... which could keep things competitive without an overt cap. This mechanic is similar to the territory acquisitions as well ... each one requires more wins to capture (with a max of 30? Or has it gone down?).

Edited 6/23/2021 15:34:54

@krinid, no matter what the competition is, if people care about winning it will no longer be a casual "anyone can play" competition. This is true now, and would be true about any of the proposed solutions. Right now, if clans care about winning, they shouldn’t let players play CW unless they demonstrate they can commit to paying almost every day. That seems like at least a comparable barrier to that created by the 20 games per day proposal. You might not feel that way because of the specific size of your clan.

Ultimately there is no solution to this that will satisfy everyone, because our clan ecosystem right now includes both huge clans like TSFH and small ones like SNinja.

Fizzer has to decide what he thinks clans should look like in the game and optimize CW for that. What complicates that task is that he’s not creating them from scratch - they already exist, so we all have our own opinions on what they are or should be. I think he’s already laid out what he thinks a clan should be with the format of CW as is - a medium sized group of 30-40 players who are all active daily.

We can disagree with that formulation (it isn’t what I would choose, since I hate the idea of having to kick out people who are inactive or less active), but from a game designer’s point of view there is some logic there, since daily activity is what he wants to encourage.

Edited 6/23/2021 16:27:30

Agree with you, I think Fizz will go with something that incites daily activity for the most players.

So following on with this thought: to incite more players to be active daily, then providing a system where everyone gets benefit from daily activity works best. So an inclusive not exclusive system works best. An exclusive system would be limiting the playing team either by # of players or # of games, and this would reduce daily activity b/c by default some are immediately kicked from the playing team. Instead, an inclusive system that enables all players to participate and rewards them for contributing on a regular basis will achieve this result.