Archived Make Factions Bigger By Making Them Smaller.

[MokeDuck]

So, I wanted to bring up something that was suggested a while ago but, since things are a little different now, I think would work better now than then. I remember that this was suggested and I really disliked it, however now I think it would not only be wise but also might be necessary. Basically, the idea is that to keep Massive's factions playerbase engaged you would put a cap on faction members. Although this sounds crazy, as long as its not an unreasonable cap it would come with plenty of pros that would actually really improve the factions experience. The cap should be between 30 and 60, probably being raised during the summer. And yes I know it sounds crazy, but this isn't some frustrated faction leader trying to get more members by harming the existing big factions. I got this idea from a leader of a very large and successful faction and I honestly would be willing to disband my 4-year-old faction to see some changes like this take place on massive.

Pros:
- Players would have more value in factions. Recruitment wouldn't be an ongoing grind to get a higher count. Players would be expected to contribute to the faction.
- Larger factions would still be possible, however they would need to be separated into sub facs. This would create an environment of diplomacy that I've actually seen on other games with guild/factions/alliances that have member caps on them. It would introduce and force having sub facs (and beyond that loyal sub facs) that currently is impractical because there's really no reason, you can do it all on your own.
-Faction members would be more active. As one of a limited number of players in a faction, there would be a sort of pressure to actually contribute. With RP factions, you would be expected to be active and stuff. After all, if a spot in a faction is valuable you aren't gonna let there be a bunch of inactive people in it.
-More CoK incentive. Member slots could be a reward for winning CoK. The current winner would have +10 member slots, which would be lost upon losing. This would also contribute toward my next point.
-Create GOOD conflict. Conflict sounds bad, but it is actually an integral part of factions. When theres no good in-game conflict to get mad about, people just get mad about actually more IRL things and then PvP gets flamey and personal. If there's one faction every month that have 10 extra members, factions might team up on that one. If a faction steals members or a member jumps to another faction, there would be betrayal thats not just stealing or griefing that makes up the current way to betray a faction.
-More factions. This is odvious. Factions would also be more likely to be close to each other and work together.

and of course, no good idea would fail to adress the cons.
-"Its against the server identity!" keep it high enough so most existing factions are under it but low enough to force at least the super-factions to split into smaller sub facs... idk what I'm trying to say is that unless you're really stupid and start it at 10 members before balancing it it won't cause a big deal. At least not till summer.
-"it would break CoK!" if the sub-facs are vassaled and you get a bit of a bonus for reaching the member cap then you should be good... plus again diplomacy would be more commonplace.
-"You are just greedy for your own fac!" Idk how to respond to this. I have no proof otherwise. This is a random idea that I think is worth trying but if large faction owners really hate it with a passion I'll stand down like with MassiveSeige.
-"Your objection here!" If its informed and well-put I'll put it here and respond to it I geuss

 

[MokeDuck]

Reserved! Also I wanna do a quick @Satisarah @Genecide65 @Billingsgate <- (I think) and @Tokuu @Viscar cause they own facs that are bigger than mine. Please tell me I'm not just greedy for members and that you at least semi-agree with me kinda or something idk I'm dumb

Update: Tokuu seems to like... confirmed not a dumb silly stupid idea like MassiveSeige.

 

[grizenator]

I completely agree

 

[Boogjangels]

Interesting idea...

If you think about it, a faction of 20 people would be considered enormous on most faction servers, but I think that's because Massivecraft plays more like a towny server than a traditional faction server (ironic, I know) so factions over 30 people are quite common.

Like you said, we'd see a lot more factions being built if this change was made, and if empires ever become a thing, we might even see some realistic-ish government structures between different factions. But I have to admit, I'm really worried this might render the cities of the faction worlds pointless. You'll see a lot of new hamlets and bunkers being built, but most people aren't crazy enough to build a city just to house a handful of people.

Maybe the pros would outweigh the cons, I don't know. Definitely a topic worth discussing though, good post.

 

[ZiHAMMER]

cap must be 1 member

 

[FireFan96]

My only thought is that what would prevent a 40 man faction from just becoming two 20 men factions right next to each other? A long time ago on servers long since dead, I played with a faction that did exactly this. Once they reached a cap, they made a secondary faction and allied it, gave them all the same perms, and continued on.

If factions want to be big, let them be big. Having more factions comprised of people who used to be in the same faction won't change much imo. It just divides the claims up into smaller territories, and creates more work for huge factions that would have to divide their claims amongst several individuals.

 

[grizenator]

My only thought is that what would prevent a 40 man faction from just becoming two 20 men factions right next to each other? A long time ago on servers long since dead, I played with a faction that did exactly this. Once they reached a cap, they made a secondary faction and allied it, gave them all the same perms, and continued on.

If factions want to be big, let them be big. Having more factions comprised of people who used to be in the same faction won't change much imo. It just divides the claims up into smaller territories, and creates more work for huge factions that would have to divide their claims amongst several individuals.

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The cap would be around 50 members, if the faction is good then people will want to be in it, hence they try to prove their worth by being active and helping out around the faction.

 

[Satisarah]

I definitely think it's an interesting idea. It's been discussed in Game meetings before, and I'm sure it's something we could pick back up on again.

 

[Ndfeb]

Perhaps not a hardcap on member count but on faction power?

 

[grizenator]

Perhaps not a hardcap on member count but on faction power?

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Faction power is directly related to player count though.

 

[Ndfeb]

The thing i mean would be that after you reach 50 members, additional members would not contribute to faction power.

 

[Boogjangels]

The thing i mean would be that after you reach 50 members, additional members would not contribute to faction power.

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Not a bad idea...

That way, if a faction wants to keep growing they can, but it will become more and more difficult to house and facilitate those extra players as the member count expands. Good idea!

 

[MokeDuck]

idk. Although I do realize that splitting seems like just an extra thing that does nothing to hinder faction growth, I disagree. I think splitting is a good thing, because there is still a person being given responsibility, thus making him more integral to the faction and thus making him more active.

I do agree though that big cities would become less practical... but sub facs claiming parts of a city wouldn't be impossible either...

 

[Alj23]

It just feels super untrue to the play style MassiveCraft has allowed to exist since the start: that the server/staff aren't going to tell you how to run your faction or what to do with your faction.

This next part is a question to you @MokeDuck , because I don't want to make assumptions without understanding exactly what you were trying to remedy with this thread: Are you unhappy with the current state of factions on MassiveCraft? Specifically, are you unhappy with factions being too big, too small, not active enough, not engaging enough, not fun enough, etc? What problems were you trying to fix with this idea?

 

[MokeDuck]

It just feels super untrue to the play style MassiveCraft has allowed to exist since the start: that the server/staff aren't going to tell you how to run your faction or what to do with your faction.

This next part is a question to you @MokeDuck , because I don't want to make assumptions without understanding exactly what you were trying to remedy with this thread: Are you unhappy with the current state of factions on MassiveCraft? Specifically, are you unhappy with factions being too big, too small, not active enough, not engaging enough, not fun enough, etc? What problems were you trying to fix with this idea?

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Player retention. A HUGE majority of players will get on for a few days, join a faction, then leave. Although I'm content with the environment of existing factions, I think this would make them a lot better. I think I outlined the pros. Basically I'm semi-content with how factions works but I think by changing the dynamics up a little they can be improved a lot.

I do very much value how massive has been, but I'm also very frustrated with its slight decline that its had. Its not a super sudden "Its the end of massive!!! aak!" but there also are a lot less people in the factions community than back then. I listen to a LOT of complaints from PvPers, and I think that a change of how factions works would improve things enough to outweigh the pros gained from preserving the environment of massive.

What I'm trying to say is that beyond the grind of recruitment, factions isn't very competitive. PvP is so detached from actual factions nowadays that its a bit frustrating. Me and a lot of non-roleplayers really just want some new content from factions that actually changes a major part of factions and not just a small thing to add to the list of things to pay attention to in PvP

 

[MokeDuck]

snip

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that was long. Basically I want factions to be more competitive and I at least want it to be different.

 

[Alj23]

Player retention. A HUGE majority of players will get on for a few days, join a faction, then leave. Although I'm content with the environment of existing factions, I think this would make them a lot better. I think I outlined the pros. Basically I'm semi-content with how factions works but I think by changing the dynamics up a little they can be improved a lot.

I do very much value how massive has been, but I'm also very frustrated with its slight decline that its had. Its not a super sudden "Its the end of massive!!! aak!" but there also are a lot less people in the factions community than back then. I listen to a LOT of complaints from PvPers, and I think that a change of how factions works would improve things enough to outweigh the pros gained from preserving the environment of massive.

What I'm trying to say is that beyond the grind of recruitment, factions isn't very competitive. PvP is so detached from actual factions nowadays that its a bit frustrating. Me and a lot of non-roleplayers really just want some new content from factions that actually changes a major part of factions and not just a small thing to add to the list of things to pay attention to in PvP

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that was long. Basically I want factions to be more competitive and I at least want it to be different.

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Alright, so at this moment I think it's safe to say you're barely content with the current factions environment, and just want factions to be fun overall. Trust me when I say I want the same thing, we just differ on how to achieve it. I don't think that decreasing the amount of people you can have in a faction will achieve this. With as many unique logins to the server as MassiveCraft gets, I personally feel like a lot of good talent would get lost to new players leaving because their only options would be the good factions that are already capped or really mediocre factions that aren't good enough to grab their interest, and then they leave.

I personally think you can break the experience, or life of a faction up into three very distinct phases in their existence; early development, mid game/reaching maturity, end-game/maturity. Every one of those phases needs to be strong, and if they are strong, I believe that would be the way to keep people from logging on and leaving just a few days later.

In the early development, for both factions and players, information on how to succeed on the server needs to be abundant and easy accessible. If the overall environment of factions could become better, which means members of factions always have stuff to do, don't feel left out, and essentially find whatever faction they join enticing, they won't leave. That makes the faction stronger and lets it progress to the next phase.

In the mid-game/reaching maturity phase, factions are established enough and have enough members to not go completely inactive the next day if some of them leave, but they are still growing and recruiting/building their city(s). What separates them at this point from the early game is that the faction is established and should feel like a community to its members. They feel part of something bigger than themselves.

In the late game/maturity phase, the faction is well established, full of active members and leadership, and might even be relevant and known in the server wide environment. Members log on with a clear goal in mind every time they play, and the faction actively engages in endgame content. Endgame content needs to be good and constantly released on MassiveCraft for factions to continue being the best they can be, or they reach the endgame and then stagnate because they is nothing to do. Players can only motivate themselves so much before they want the server to give them things to achieve.

If each phase of factions can at least be improved from what it is right now, I think you'd see a lot of factions improve their quality overall as they work towards their goals and goals set out by the server. Crisis of Kings is good endgame content, but it needs to be paired with additional endgame content that appeals to more than just PVPers. Content that appeals to faction players that want to focus on creating factions that are strong in politics, economics, building, etc. Give factions more content and they participate in it.

Built it and they will come.

In conclusion, I think capping faction populations will stunt a lot of faction growth and what factions can achieve, and a lot of active factions will cap out quickly, leaving new players to either face joining a very poor faction in terms of quality and engagement, or just not playing on the server.

 

[grizenator]

It would be interesting as large factions resort to more slum like housing to have room for all their members

 

[MokeDuck]

SNiP

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you're smart and I agree with you a lot... and I havent thought about how more factions might mean more bad factions and thus a decrease in player retention... with that in mind though I do still think this might be worth trying, although starting the cap VERY high (about 50 members) with the permission and support of most, if not all effected factions on the server might be worth trying. Now though I do see how there might be a bit of risk involved. I would like staff to still consider, as we now have two out of the people I tagged semi-liking this idea and they own the effected factions. I would love to see gene's response along with @OttomanWay and @ZACGAMR7

 

[ZACGAMR7]

All factions of any size start small. Growing to any size requires reaching out to many players on the server and convincing them that your faction is the best use of their time. Some do this better than others, and reap the rewards as a result. Nothing will improve player retention more effectively than maintaining their freedom to choose the faction players want to join, regardless of its size.

Grouping large factions together as some ominous collective force is an uneducated and misguided thing to do. Just because Asteria might have a competitive history with Insani, Tyberia, Enigma, among other large factions, doesn't mean that Asteria operates like they do. Going off my personal observations that the overwhelming majority of experienced players on Massivecraft would prefer to see my faction wiped off the face of Aloria, its safe for me to say that if a player likes Asteria, there's probably a pretty good reason for it.

Just as people should be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin or the size of their waist, factions should not be determined to be good or bad based on the number of members they have. I have never made this judgement about other factions, and I hope that you will reconsider too. Players should always have the right to join a faction that provides or supports things they like to do. They should not be forbidden to join that faction just because a certain number of other people have already joined.

Players are people. People have lives. Not everyone wants to be online every day. Some people are semi-active. Still others are server wanderers that simply enjoy trying out different servers on a regular basis. I cite Price's Law here to make a comparison. In a business, probability provides that 50% of the productivity will come from the square root of the total number of workers in the business. The other 50% will come from the remaining workers. Translate Price's Law to faction activity.

In any faction, probability may provide the following for population sizes:

Population of 50 → √50 active people (about 7)

Population of 100 → √100 active people (10)

Population of 200 → √200 active people (about 14)

In conclusion, I firmly maintain my position that the size of a faction does not affect player retention, and holding factions accountable for their size will reduce the motivation of these intelligent leaders who have put in the effort of making their factions into what they are now. Rather, we should always be looking to offer the best content that we can for our players. Every faction does this in a different way, and the server staff have their own plans as well. In all reasonable cases, more freedom of choice and fewer ceilings on success will make Massivecraft a better place to play.

Footnote: my position is congruent for faction power ceilings.

Footnote: @Alj23 has experience working with me in Asteria, so he's well tuned to the dynamics of player activity in an example large faction.

@MokeDuck

 

[CnocBride]

As Zac said, I do not think player retention is caused by faction size, I believe it is a mix of confusion on first joining the server and also lack of interest. I've recruited many people into Enigma, I was there when it was at 200 and I'm here when it's only at like 28. Enigma lost its players due to a lack of interest - partly my fault and partly the fault of the other officers and leaders in Enigma. I believe a strong and active officer team that provide fun activities and jobs for members to work on will increase player retention.

I am a firm believer that if you give a player a GOOD orientation when they join the server, they will stay unless they are a "traveller", the type of player who does not intend on staying long with the server, these players normally join and never come back because they never intended on staying and were just checking Massive out.

You said that players would be valued more, MokeDuck, I believe all large factions value their players much. I do not see recruitment as a grind, I see it as a enjoyable activity that benefits my faction more than anything. Good recruitment is a pillar that keeps all factions alive and running.

I just don't think restricting faction sizes is a good thing. Factions should scale up/down as the server grows. Your point on diplomacy is something I agree with, except I would only like it if the long forgotten Empires update was ever implemented. Sub factions are very messy unless you actually have an alt controlling them.

I really do think this is one of the best suggestions I have read, not necessarily because I agree with it but because you actually are willing to provide XYZ solution and also you address the disadvantages of the solution.

 

[Alj23]

Hey @MokeDuck

What @ZACGAMR7 @CnocBride are saying is very very true, as seen by myself, someone who has played on this server for a long time. Making sure new players to the server understand everything in front of them is super important, considering MassiveCraft is one of the most extensive servers I've ever played on, content wise. It's a lot for new players to grasp on their first login, and I've seen countless new players log off simply because they're overwhelmed or can't figure out something that should be so simple across all servers as to how to use the server chat (which ours is vastly different from most servers.)

If people took creating a faction more seriously, and when they did, had a plan in mind of what they want to achieve, the quality of factions overall would go up. Right now we have factions that get created for the lols, and when they recruit people but don't teach them how factions and survival and the server works, it really turns new players off from engaging with the server. Which is where the player retention issue stems from.

You're right that there is a player retention issue. In the 5 years I've played on this server, MassiveCraft still hasn't gotten introducing new players to how the server works right. I don't really know if it ever will. But it should always strive to be better, which it can be.

 

[MokeDuck]

good points. I'd still like to present this idea however, like I said, since a good number of faction owners are opposed to this idea I'm hesitant to push it. I would like to say though that I have absolutely nothing against large factions or forbidding factions to become large, but I wanted to suggest a pretty large revision to how factions work.

 

[ZACGAMR7]

I try to keep myself disconnected from the trends Massivecraft has in order to better build a society within my faction that I like. If you believe that factions should focus on different things, my biggest piece of advice to you is to use your own faction as a testing ground for your ideas. Trying to convince people to support a server-wide change is a lot harder than implementing a change of focus in your own faction. If you find that your member retention improves to an acceptable standard, share your ideas with your friends and other leaders who you believe would appreciate your findings.

If your argument is reasonable and can be supported with evidence, it doesn't require forcing all the players on the server to accept the change with staff power. It only requires your success to show that adopting your focuses will bring success to the rest of the server too.

@MokeDuck

 

[Zacatero]

use your own faction as a testing ground for your ideas

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Oh god no. @Sephite STOP HIM!

 

[Winterless]

Yeah... don't do what ZACGAMR said.

 

[CnocBride]

I try to keep myself disconnected from the trends Massivecraft has in order to better build a society within my faction that I like. If you believe that factions should focus on different things, my biggest piece of advice to you is to use your own faction as a testing ground for your ideas. Trying to convince people to support a server-wide change is a lot harder than implementing a change of focus in your own faction. If you find that your member retention improves to an acceptable standard, share your ideas with your friends and other leaders who you believe would appreciate your findings.

If your argument is reasonable and can be supported with evidence, it doesn't require forcing all the players on the server to accept the change with staff power. It only requires your success to show that adopting your focuses will bring success to the rest of the server too.

@MokeDuck

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I do disagree with your statement on the isolation of factions. Asteria is known for being very isolated and rarely involved within its own community. I believe faction interaction needs to be encouraged more and it is being encouraged more through this world move. Without faction interaction there would be no war, trade or diplomacy, key elements of factions.

 

[ZACGAMR7]

I do disagree with your statement on the isolation of factions. Asteria is known for being very isolated and rarely involved within its own community. I believe faction interaction needs to be encouraged more and it is being encouraged more through this world move. Without faction interaction there would be no war, trade or diplomacy, key elements of factions.

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That first statement was advising him to go against the grain, not isolate his faction. People who want things to change at large should go against the grain within their own spheres of influence instead of trying to cause a server-wide change all at once. Ideas that prove successful can be shared and spread while those that prove to fail can be thrown out without causing server-wide damage from the latter. People should put their eggs into their little faction baskets instead of using staff power to put all the eggs into one big server-sized basket.

Asteria's relative isolation has nothing to do with my advice to him. It's just a reflection of my personal choices and what I think is best for the faction.

 

[MokeDuck]

idk whats going on here... If I had more members I might consider actually... um... kicking half of them I geuss... Idk did you read the idea? It probably would only improve the factions experience a little if just one faction did it. The bulk of the benefits would happen cause everyone does it. If I (and I'd only do this is I actually had a few more members, which are hard to get when your housing base still hasn't been moved) kicked half my members but none of the other factions did it, the kicked members would just go join another larger faction, and that wouldn't improve anything at all.

idk though. I do for sure wanna test some other ideas for my faction. This one wouldn't work. I don't wanna suggest them to faction members and officers cause they'd be biased, but RN I'm suggesting it to the effected people and seeing what they think about it. Some people like it and others don't. I'm inclined to say that some of the larger factions don't really like this idea so it shouldn't be implemented. I forget why but someone wrote stuff against this that was very convincing and I totally agreed with.

 

[ZACGAMR7]

idk whats going on here... If I had more members I might consider actually... um... kicking half of them I geuss... Idk did you read the idea? It probably would only improve the factions experience a little if just one faction did it. The bulk of the benefits would happen cause everyone does it. If I (and I'd only do this is I actually had a few more members, which are hard to get when your housing base still hasn't been moved) kicked half my members but none of the other factions did it, the kicked members would just go join another larger faction, and that wouldn't improve anything at all.

idk though. I do for sure wanna test some other ideas for my faction. This one wouldn't work. I don't wanna suggest them to faction members and officers cause they'd be biased, but RN I'm suggesting it to the effected people and seeing what they think about it. Some people like it and others don't. I'm inclined to say that some of the larger factions don't really like this idea so it shouldn't be implemented. I forget why but someone wrote stuff against this that was very convincing and I totally agreed with.

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The behavior of your members reflects their opinion about your ideas and what you have to show for them in your faction. If what you do does improve the faction experience for your members, then if the other leaders on the server don't adopt your ideas after you share them, that's their loss. The players will go to the factions that give them the best experience.

I will tell you right now. Kicking half the members who wanted to be in your faction isn't going to improve their experience. Of course they would join a larger faction. That's the most obvious evidence that those factions don't kick their members.

 

[Jalapeno690]

Cap members but increase power back to 60, instead of 30, would allow for great and majestic city's and towns to be built once again! Something which is now a rarity

 

[Jalapeno690]

Cap members but increase power back to 60, instead of 30, would allow for great and majestic city's and towns to be built once again! Something which is now a rarity

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A smaller player base within a faction, will help to achieve this, but also increase faction integrity and identity, instead of mrdgfddblue who logged on, joined, left and is one of 150 inactive members in a 299 person fac, now there is ALLOT more I could add, but I'm on my phone, so please don't jump down my throat plz

 

[MokeDuck]

The behavior of your members reflects their opinion about your ideas and what you have to show for them in your faction. If what you do does improve the faction experience for your members, then if the other leaders on the server don't adopt your ideas after you share them, that's their loss. The players will go to the factions that give them the best experience.

I will tell you right now. Kicking half the members who wanted to be in your faction isn't going to improve their experience. Of course they would join a larger faction. That's the most obvious evidence that those factions don't kick their members.

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did you read my post? I don't feel like you understand... the benefits would be to the server community and how factions interact with eachother. This would harm individual factions. In essence, this is an intentional obstacle for factions to encourage them to function differently from the way they do now, which I understand isn't exactly the norm of what massive does. This is absolutely not a general tip for faction leaders to do better or a new model that would assist the individual faction to function better.

 

[Alj23]

did you read my post? I don't feel like you understand... the benefits would be to the server community and how factions interact with eachother. This would harm individual factions. In essence, this is an intentional obstacle for factions to encourage them to function differently from the way they do now, which I understand isn't exactly the norm of what massive does. This is absolutely not a general tip for faction leaders to do better or a new model that would assist the individual faction to function better.

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But upon implementation of your idea, it affects every faction on the server no matter what. If you go ahead and attempt this with your personal faction, you get to see if it succeeds or fails which would determine whether or not other factions should be forced to adhere to the cap.

This would harm individual factions.

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I mean, you said it, so I think it's safe to say this idea wouldn't accomplish what you think it would.

 

[MokeDuck]

But upon implementation of your idea, it affects every faction on the server no matter what. If you go ahead and attempt this with your personal faction, you get to see if it succeeds or fails which would determine whether or not other factions should be forced to adhere to the cap.


I mean, you said it, so I think it's safe to say this idea wouldn't accomplish what you think it would.

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It might, but theres a good chance it might not. The faction may be worse off but the server as a whole will be better off, along with that faction's interaction with other factions. Obstacles can be good in game design. Harming the players in a healthy way does good to the game.

 

[ZACGAMR7]

It might, but theres a good chance it might not. The faction may be worse off but the server as a whole will be better off, along with that faction's interaction with other factions. Obstacles can be good in game design. Harming the players in a healthy way does good to the game.

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Players who can't join a faction they want to be in because the faction has already reached the member cap will have a worse game experience.

Faction leaders who can't recruit the number of members they want to work with because they already reached the cap will have a worse game experience.

Semi-active players who want casual play that end up kicked from factions for not being active enough to be worth a space in the now limited number of members a faction can have will have a worse game experience.

If keeping your faction small helps your diplomacy and engagement, that's great. Give that good faction experience to as many of your members as you can. But I see no reason why this should be something forced on all the other leaders that want to run their factions their way. Instead of appealing for the staff to make everyone play a certain way because you personally think it's a good idea, prove that your ideas improve the game experience for your own faction members. Here's something I can suggest for you to try.

1. Recruit until you reach fifty members.
2. Gather ten or so of those members and have them branch off into their own faction. You can use your faction's balance to finance their faction creation and land upkeep for a while.
3. Repeat steps one and two until you have the number of factions you would desire for an enhanced diplomatic playing field.
4. Advertise your confederation/union/empire to other players who don't have factions to provide them with a great game experience.

No forcing everyone on the server to do this is required. The above four steps should give you the power to compete with the rest of the server's ideas in order to see how yours stacks up against theirs. Clearly you should win over many of the potential recruits if this is truly a good way of playing factions.

 

[MokeDuck]

Players who can't join a faction they want to be in because the faction has already reached the member cap will have a worse game experience.

Faction leaders who can't recruit the number of members they want to work with because they already reached the cap will have a worse game experience.

Semi-active players who want casual play that end up kicked from factions for not being active enough to be worth a space in the now limited number of members a faction can have will have a worse game experience.

If keeping your faction small helps your diplomacy and engagement, that's great. Give that good faction experience to as many of your members as you can. But I see no reason why this should be something forced on all the other leaders that want to run their factions their way. Instead of appealing for the staff to make everyone play a certain way because you personally think it's a good idea, prove that your ideas improve the game experience for your own faction members. Here's something I can suggest for you to try.

1. Recruit until you reach fifty members.
2. Gather ten or so of those members and have them branch off into their own faction. You can use your faction's balance to finance their faction creation and land upkeep for a while.
3. Repeat steps one and two until you have the number of factions you would desire for an enhanced diplomatic playing field.
4. Advertise your confederation/union/empire to other players who don't have factions to provide them with a great game experience.

No forcing everyone on the server to do this is required. The above four steps should give you the power to compete with the rest of the server's ideas in order to see how yours stacks up against theirs. Clearly you should win over many of the potential recruits if this is truly a good way of playing factions.

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Good things for me to work on, and I definitely will. I kinda understand what you meant now, but the integral part of this is that it is forced. I would argue that faction leaders wouldn't necessarily have a worse experience, as they can't possibly have 50 specific players that they wan't to play with (can they?) and beyond that is just getting your count higher, which is what I'm suggesting we should avoid. Also theoretically if the faction you want to join is full and no other factions have any room, would would team up with the many other players which would probably be left out and make your own. However I do see that more casual players would have a harder time, along with a slight difficulty toward members in general. The theory, again, would be that since there are more factions, the more active ones would only have active members and the less active ones would have more not so-active members. I don't, thinking about it, think that this would be necessarily beneficial.

 

[ZACGAMR7]

Good things for me to work on, and I definitely will. I kinda understand what you meant now, but the integral part of this is that it is forced. I would argue that faction leaders wouldn't necessarily have a worse experience, as they can't possibly have 50 specific players that they wan't to play with (can they?) and beyond that is just getting your count higher, which is what I'm suggesting we should avoid. Also theoretically if the faction you want to join is full and no other factions have any room, would would team up with the many other players which would probably be left out and make your own. However I do see that more casual players would have a harder time, along with a slight difficulty toward members in general. The theory, again, would be that since there are more factions, the more active ones would only have active members and the less active ones would have more not so-active members. I don't, thinking about it, think that this would be necessarily beneficial.

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While I refuse to speak on behalf of "large factions", I can speak from my own experience. Both strategies of recruitment have their benefits and downsides. There's no one, right way to run your faction. I adamantly defend the right of faction leaders to operate their faction with the size and structure they want.

I choose to recruit a large number of members because I accept the fact that everyone's lives are different. Some people can play a lot. Some people only want to play a little while. Still others are once and done, or maybe just don't like Massivecraft since it does Factions way differently than other servers do. Accepting everyone who wants to join Asteria means I'm going to get a bunch of every demographic. It's not an even split between each player type, and anyone who tries to tell you they know exactly how many of each there is or should be is lying to you or an idiot. Since I want Asteria to be an available option for as many player types as possible, my expectations are bottom line.

Many factions look for a specific type of player -- like a regularly active one, a roleplayer, a PvPer, or a good worker. It helps to be more exclusive in their cases. There's nothing wrong with that.

Most other factions don't do what I do, obviously. Not every faction aims to have a lot of members. But the idea that having many members is a bad thing or needs to be sanctioned is wrong. No one can predict how people's lives are and how it affects their gameplay, nor should they have the right to use staff power to force other leaders to do what they want, regardless of how it affects the server at large. I don't tell the staff to sanction PvP because it causes some of my non-PvPer members to rage-quit the server. That's just a fact of life and videogames.

If improving server engagement is the goal here, forcing change to the way factions operate is not the way to go. The focus should on baseline features. I saw there's a new department of staff for survival content. That's a great move in my opinion. Perhaps they could add some dungeons to explore or continue their work on the Empires extension (minus features I've already denounced here).

 

[Shaneski101]

I really like this idea, I've been telling my friends and enemies we should all
Split up into factions of 4-5 and enemy everyone else, creating a bunch of PvP.

My only concern is this seems to hurt large factions as of now with a lot of land.

Besides that, I think staff should really look into this. 20-40 would be my ideal number, it'd also stop factions from putting like 30 alts into one faction as some do. @Tokuu i would really look into this, it is something that would generate a lot more as he said. A bunch of new factions.

 

[MokeDuck]

I really like this idea, I've been telling my friends and enemies we should all
Split up into factions of 4-5 and enemy everyone else, creating a bunch of PvP.

My only concern is this seems to hurt large factions as of now with a lot of land.

Besides that, I think staff should really look into this. 20-40 would be my ideal number, it'd also stop factions from putting like 30 alts into one faction as some do. @Tokuu i would really look into this, it is something that would generate a lot more as he said. A bunch of new factions.

Click to shrink...

Yea, in terms of PvP it would help a lot. I do agree with what ZAC said though, I don't think this would be a good move. I will always plug it: a better siege system would be the best option in terms of increasing factions competitive-ness. This would honestly hinder quite a few players if they don't create their own non-competitive factions. Also, after the world move I would expect it would be harder for less competitive factions to exist due to the fact that being out of the way is harder now. idk... I would feel content either with or without this.