Question : Alliance/Clan systems in PBBGs
Here's a thing I'm gonna try to go with. A weekly or twice a week question, where I present a question, two arguements and give a poll for people to vote on.
So the first question (and one I need the answer for so I can keep moving forward on my own game 
) is :
So the question this time is : Do you think players in a position based strategy game should be forced onto teams or should they be allowed to form their now teams?[poll id="3"]
On the one hand, you have forcing players into groups. This forces players to work together as a team to defeat the other side, gives a clear enemy and can have some interesting internal player dynamics as they struggle for power in their groups. It also for the designer/coder gives a solid number of sides to build gameplay around and ensure game balance. But, it limits the freedom of the player, forcing them to work with people in game they may not want to and may stop them from being able to play with their friends.
An example of a game and uses this type of system is StarKingdoms. When you join the game you join a sector with about 20 other people who vote on their leader who has the job of ensure the sectors protection and growth by joining larger alliances and purchasing sector wide upgrades. Another game is FinalEarth which has been closed for ages, but forced players into Axis and Allies teams, allowing for smaller groups to be made with these large alliances. I found this to be my favorite style and the way I'm leaning to on my game but I want to run a few idea's by everyone.
The other side of the coin is allowing players to just join the game and form their own groups. This is a problem for me since I want the game play to be large scale battles and a constant back and forth that I'm not really sure I could achieve with hundreds of small groups.
One of the things that kinda differs in the strategy game compared to others, there is really a limited amount of space and instead of building massive empires you are levying for strategic positions.
But let's assume I picked the option to allow players to create their own groups. You join the game and play for a little while without being a message of a group. After a few days they join one and have all of a sudden need to follow the orders of a leader they may not agree with. You join another and another. You eventually find one but instead of focusing on the point of the game you are just are trying to find a group you can deal with. Or you just join and never join a group, which means you have never played the game in the way I'm intending it to be played.
Let me try to be not so negative and everything works out. The players find groups they like and battle like I intend. You instead of two or three groups, have 10's-100's of small groups battling for position. This could be pretty damn interesting and would make the game very difficult since positions would constantly change hands. It would actually make it almost impossible for one small group to do this I think. I would think that would eventually merge groups to achieve their ends.
And while this could be an interesting idea, I think after all this writing I'm even more strongly leaning towards two or three teams players are forced onto (maybe with the option to reserve a friend slot or two) and then an internal struggle for leadership as the group works towards their common goal no matter who is leading.
But, what do you think? Vote and comment and we'll debate this till we have a solid idea.
PS: It seems I've written about this in the past.... And polled! But I think this is a much better explanation and a good segway for me to get back into blogging by repeating everything I've ever done xD
Related posts:
September 18th, 2009 - 09:56
Hey there,
Like many game features, it depends on the game. How does it fit in the other game mechanics? Which rules should be taken into account? What effect does the game pace have? etc.
Though an important note is that, when players create their own alliances, it can become a game of friends politics. Pretty fast you get a scenario where the player who joins the best alliance wins.
Off course that’s not always the case. First of all, a limit to the number of players in an alliance can help. Second, the advantage the alliance gives plays a big part. When (not) joining an alliance doesn’t have a real impact on your power, but only provides some other bonuses, then there shouldn’t be a problem.
Forcing the players into teams is a lot easier to plan. It’s way easier to balance, control and to back up a story. You can create specific missions / goals, bonuses, …
But: the time you win by control you loose by content. Creating fresh content is very intensive work. Plus, it feels artificial and not exciting, something you won’t have with human interaction.
I think that, in general, letting the players form their own alliances can provide the most fun gameplay. Only when you deal with it in a clever way though, when the rest of your design pulls out the potential of player formed groups.
Like I stated before it depends on your game. How your design handles it. You can’t say one is better than the other. That’s why I can’t vote on your poll
.
PS
I like the idea of posting a question each (or twice a) week. Hope you find some interesting ones!
September 18th, 2009 - 10:24
Thanks for the comment
I will be writing a longer reply to yours later (I’m at my day job) but I pretty much agree with everything you’ve said. I will though drop a few more details on what it is I’m working on and a more concrete example.
By the way, you have any idea for gameplay elements or anything PBBG you’d like to see me explore?
September 21st, 2009 - 15:11
I agree with Janne. In all games I play I find it more enjoyable if I can team up with some of my friends. I have also found this to be the case in my game too.
What you could do and what has been done in other games before is to have factions, and in those factions players can create their own teams (containing their friends). So even though there would be many teams they would belong to different factions. Then you can have the larger scale war between the factions going on. I think that would make it much more manageable for players.
Players will have much more fun competing with eachother in their teams than on a grand scale with every player in the game. Look at the popular facebook games. The main focus is on competing with your friends. The ‘World’ scores are just there for the select few who actually have the top scores.
September 24th, 2009 - 05:05
Sorry for the late reply. I’ve decided with polls I will write follow up posts to questions after a few days and think about the poll results and anyone’s comments
November 22nd, 2009 - 15:48
how I see the problem: I usually don’t end up playing PBBGs with friends, so being “forced” to join a team or group would probably help me get involved in the game. That said, if I do set up to play with my friends, then I’d probably want to do that to the exclusion of other things.
possible solution: When a user account is created, require them to join a team of such-and-such a number, if they are joining with some friends then allow them to create their own group, but require that before they can play they need to join a group with at least a certain number of members (but I’d suggest an upper limit as well to keep the team small enough to give everyone some face time and to force people to work together; I’d suggest like 4 to 10 people per team).
That way if people want to join and play with friends they can. This’d probably create a problem where people want to play loners and leave rather then join a group, or where people want to play with friends but their friends don’t create accounts quickly and they can’t play until their friends do… They might all just forget about the game entirely, never having played.
I don’t like the idea of being forced onto a ridiculously large team or “alliance” in games. It doesn’t seem like your millions of fellows would really help you out (maybe reward people who help their fellow-alliance members?). In a small team (like 4 people in a zombie apocalypse to borrow from L4D) you and they depend on each other, you can’t survive alone.
L4D also uses bots when there aren’t enough players on a team (it also requires that there be exactly 4 people on the team at all times unless someone’s dead).