!!! Changes in Alliance Battles !!! please do read this!!!!

True

Agreed

Agreed, it's a bad idea to keep those games open.

They essentially killed alliance play and matches with this...

I totally agree with Vinnie, Alliance battles are a small part of the continued ineptness of Bytro policies, I would however advise to be very careful in what is posted here in Forum as the front line 'Gatekeepers' will be directed to shut down and silence any movement with Forum warnings and ultimately expulsion from this vital avenue of interaction with the community, (familiar Bytro policies and procedures are at work here), I feel empathy for the MA and SMOD which are in awkward position to do their superiors bidding.

Truth of the situation here in Bytro can not be silenced, movements can be continued on DISCORD , see you guys on discord as I know my days are numbered here in Forum conversations...

https://tenor.com/view/failure-to-communicate-gif-11850692

While I am not hyperbolic as some on this subject. I do see the advantage to being able to close down matches where one side has given up.

Perhaps a workaround might be to introduce a surrender option the alliance leader can use outside the game? I envision the same area where the archive button is located.

Agreed. This kills the competitive scene inside the s1914 community and it seems Bytro is to blind to see this. A surrender button would already solve this problem so the winning side in alliance matches dont have to waste their time on fightings bots while you already know the outcome of a fight.

100% agreed. It's like they went out of their way to piss off the community. Even when companies do this, they'll revert when they hear the outrage, so here's hoping Bytro listens and either reinstates this or provide a surrender button.

Monty

Here's the issue folks: Players have used this 'surrender' option by submitting a ticket to close alliance matches in order to preserve the K/D ratios that they may enjoy.
The solution to this is, win the game and stop trying to spare the loss of these ratios.
The policy is in place. It is there for this reason specifically.
Choose your opponents wisely and expect to win or loose, but play the game out.

Acknowledge that it is new the 'LAW' layed down by Bytro about Alliance Battle Maps,

On the topic of preserving k/d ratios, I seriously doubt any players with the amazing k/d ratio is overly concerned with the minimal amount of units which can be created within a 10 player map scenario, if this is remotely relevant then Bytro should also stop these players from going AFK to preserve their k/d ratios in 500 maps where they can literally have their k/d ratios decimated in ONE map.

Bytro will still get the reports requesting to have maps closed and the GO will now respond with a predef response of map has to be played out to 1500 points, (rather than simply closing a dead map) in the mean time valuable server usage space will be taken up while winning alliance team is forced to eat AI countries, maps that could be closed will be using server space for 1-2 months rather than 14-21 days

What is more redundant about this new application of Alliance maps playing out to a 1500 point conclusion is that the winning alliance players 'since new AI kills/stats are added to players k/d ratios' will now get their k/d ratios artificially enhanced via fighting AI robot countries while suffering nearly zero losses.

IMO...better would be honesty and transparency from Bytro to state Alliances are now on chopping block to be removed / mothballed same as legacy view, role play maps, league play maps and any other form of server useage that discourages gold use as part dynamics for such maps.

So, respectfully my question is how does this new LAW make sense for the Bytro company when the community is dissatisfied, the GO's still have to do the tickets, and more server space is being used for nothing... how does this LAW benefit the community or volunteer staff or Bytro's profit margarine ??

The community is dis-satisfied, or a hand full of alliance or high profile players within certain maps?
The The bottom line is, where is the line drawn then as to what maps are closed at request? 500 player? 10 player?
One size does fit all in this application.

Well respondents to this topic are certainly the veterans from the community, should Bytro listen to us, or should they listen to the newbies that are asking what day they can build a factory?

If obtuse blanket policies are the LAW and now Alliance Battle maps are the most recent target, then it is a procedural behavior pattern in itself as I listed above all the past targets in my short time here at Bytro...

I am going to silence myself rather than force you to do so... topic is being deflected from Alliance Battle maps to k/d ratios, now One size fits all... thanks for response okay...

I can hardly criticize a rule or application of policy that is administered fairly and equitably across the board as much as is possible as being 'obtuse'. Rules are just that, and we expect as much from the staff to try and maintain them as we do from the players to work with in them.

I also want to point out that the objective of alliance games is to pit alliances against each other, and if the opposing alliance wants to surrender, then I would consider that a fulfillment of the initial goal. With that in mind, perhaps it calls into question why 1500pts or any arbitrary number, which is only indicative of performance relative to the rest of the map, is used to end alliance games. (Although this is probably a whole other discussion) If domination maps have an unique objective of capturing a number of "flags"/provinces, I don't see why alliance games can't.

To add on to what has been said about preserving K/D, perhaps the surrender is conditional on the winning side's acceptance, which would reflect reality, regardless of moral, ethical or statutory obligations to accept it in real life.

Monty

I do not disagree that there are game options that can be built into the game features, and I would also like to see some, to include a surrender option button or alliance game VP settings. However, until that day comes, we have what we have and all things considered with the shape of the world in general, it is indeed nice to be able to discuss the things that are within our ability to try and influence. So much is going on out there that we can not.

Disclaimer: I've never bothered with an alliance battle. I figured it was way more apt to draw lots of ego's and thus GM use. That being said:

I have two separate points to make on this topic so I'll make two posts.

If this is really a problem, the real/better solution is to punish players who go AFK at any point. EVER. Many games do this. This game has a problem in that many of the most attractive stats are not "ELO" based but just pure counting stats. There are likely some players who start dozens of maps and quit most of them. They score some points for counting stats on all of them and cherry pick the most advantageous for their efforts.

There are numerous ways Bytro can punish/discourage this behavior. First add a stat for percentage of games completed. It's a lot hard to find allies if you quit half your games and on top of that if I know you're a quitter I'll be much more likely to attack you. This would allow the community to self regulate by adopting behaviors that punish quitters.

Another option is to limit the number of maps players can play simultaneously. This is the case in many games I have played. All the way back to play by mail and play by email games they only allowed players to play on 1-2 maps until they had "finished" a certain number and then gradually increased the "allowed open games" based upon a proven track record of finishing. You could add another game slot for every 3-5 games you finish and subtract another slot for every game you quit. Finish 30 games without quitting and you can play in 12 at a time. Finish 10 but quit 4 and you're only allowed to play 1 at a time.

If there's an incentive to stay, more people will stay. Some play by mail games even stopped charging for turns when you dropped below a certain power level and offered a free turn in a future game for completing the game so that even countries that were being killed had a reason to continue and no vested financial interest in quitting. It was obvious in some games that people quit when they were definitely doomed because who wants to pay $3-5 a turn for the last few weeks while you're already obviously dead.

Does archiving the game make you inactive right away? If that's the case, get rid of that. Don't give people a way to "protect their k/D" by quitting. Alternatively you could saddle people with deaths for every unit that was already created before they went inactive. This would potentially increase the impact to the point players would rather fight (and get some kills) than go afk and take the stat drop.

The accounts here are full of players who have played 100 games and won 2 and only captured 600 provinces in 100 games. There's nothing good about that for the game or the community and way beyond the grindy-ness of finishing the maps there's definitely room for improvement in this arena. The question for Bytro from a business sense is how to make more people finish without impacting the bottom line. I would argue that more people playing the games to the end might actually increase revenue in the long run since the games would seem more fun and more competitive and this might keep more players interested for a longer period of time.

The other side of this argument is every game I ever played here except one was over long before it was ended. I've been on a 500 player map where I personally had to capture 1100 provinces (with enormous morale penalties for distance) in order to lift my coalition over the 1500 point mark.

these games end slowly with a a lot of grinding more often than not. sometimes to avoid the grind i recruit a player or two to join my coalition even though they definitely did not deserve to get a win. This is only made worse by the fact that in the games where i have to get 800-900 points while my 4 allies get 600-700 combined we all get the same reward. The coalition victories ought to include a bonus (or at the minimum GM for your points) for the players that carry the team.