Learning From History

[Houdini]

The last legitimate capital battle was April 13, 2014 (FC:Rec4.11). Anybody who has joined since then has not experience a complete war. The War is the primary activity in this community. We haven't been able to complete one in over a year. That is a major problem.


What We Have Already Tried

We have had 3 peacetime since then and we consistently try the same things to fix problems in the community.

1. Massive recruitment drives (because more people will solve all of our issues)
2. Squad transfers (because sometimes recruitment is not enough to fix skill/number imbalances)
3. Game/Map/Gametype Changes (because let's blame the game for our problems)

There have been significant leadership changes since FC:Rec4. I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure Guzzie is the only person who has been in a leadership role for the last 3 wars. So it really doesn't matter who is in power. The problems persist.


Validity Of The Community

If we end a 3rd war in a row early what does that say about the validity of the primary activity (the war) in our community?

We haven't been able to compete a war in over a year. That should make you question everything we do and all of the solutions we have tried.

It may be time to end the war early again, but I sincerely hope everybody in this community looks at what we have already done and what we have already tried. We need to stop doing the same things over and over again when they have been shown to fail.


Radical/Random Ideas



Maybe there should be a minimum number of people participating in the community before a war is started? If we don't have 32 members in each army peacetime is extended indefinitely until we reach that minimum activity level.
Maybe we should have a system to balance both numbers are skill during every peacetime (e.g. player draft, squad draft, squad/player trade system)?
Maybe we should change the structure of wars? What if we moved from multi-month wars to wars that ended every 4-6 weeks?
Maybe we should change the structure of leadership in FC? Is War Council (combination of elected and appointed leadership people) still an effective governing body for this community?
Maybe we need a 3rd faction to act as a balancing force to keep skill and numbers balances in check throughout the wars?

​

I don't know what will fix our problems, but I do know what we have already tried and what has already failed. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Maybe it is time we became rational.

[CAW0139]

agreed

[VerbotenDonkey]

I like a rule of having a minimum amount of people (maybe per army?) before a War starts.

[Seerow]

willing to try anything as long as it has a chance of making things better Dx

[Houdini]

willing to try anything as long as it has a chance of making things better Dx

I just don't like trying the same things that already failed, once, twice, a third time over and over again. We have a long list of solutions that have failed and brought us to our current situation. Let's look for some other solutions.

[CAW0139]

Im fine with this war ending early, if it means the peacetime the follows is a time full of change.

[Houdini]

Im fine with this war ending early, if it means the peacetime the follows is a time full of change.

I agree, but for both of the previous two peacetimes following a war that ended early there was no significant change (and thus the following war suffered as we are seeing now)

[silversleek]

First of all, jesus dude please stop using so much formatting, it makes quoting parts of it hard as hell. You can just put one giant tag around the entire thing instead of each individual paragraph.



[FONT=Helvetica]Maybe there should be a minimum number of people participating in the community before a war is started? If we don't have 32 members in each army peacetime is extended indefinitely until we reach that minimum activity level.

Nooo. Tried that before with some things, all that happens is the people you have start to lose interest, so it's a never ending battle trying to recruit more people than you're hemorraging. Peace time should always be as short as possible imo.



Maybe we should have a system to balance both numbers are skill during every peacetime (e.g. player draft, squad draft, squad/player trade system)?

History has shown that making people switch sides has always led to that squad dropping off of the map. (well, one or two exceptions, obviously, but the majority of cases have them disappearing)


Maybe we should change the structure of leadership in FC? Is War Council (combination of elected and appointed leadership people) still an effective governing body for this community?

Not really. They aren't really a governing body as far as I can tell, just designated poll makers to make the public decide for them (a bad idea imo)


Maybe we need a 3rd faction to act as a balancing force to keep skill and numbers balances in check throughout the wars?

It might work, but I think the difficulties of setting that up would outweigh the cost. not to mention the lore problems. (not the highest concern, but i've always been a big fan of consistent lore.)


Maybe we should change the structure of wars? What if we moved from multi-month wars to wars that ended every 4-6 weeks?

As i've said, peacetime should be as close to non-existant as possible imo. All more peace time would do is make more people disinterested.


I don't know what will fix our problems, but I do know what we have already tried and what has already failed. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Maybe it is time we became rational.

I will agree to this. I can't see a good solution either right now, but doing the same things over and over that have already failed isn't viable for long term stability.

[Houdini]

First of all, jesus dude please stop using so much formatting, it makes quoting parts of it hard as hell. You can just put one giant [font=helvetica] tag around the entire thing instead of each individual paragraph.
Sorry. I don't see any formatting tags on the post, but I may just not know what I'm looking at. I just copy and paste from a .rtf and change font stuff because Nic was complaining that my posts don't have enough breaks and too many words.




Peace time should always be as short as possible imo.

I completely agree. Every Sunday night should have something going on or something being planned otherwise the war should be starting. I don't like how we have a tendency just to delay things for the sake of delaying things.




History has shown that making people switch sides has always led to that squad dropping off of the map. (well, one or two exceptions, obviously, but the majority of cases have them disappearing)
DarkSail Raiders never forget.



Not really. They aren't really a governing body as far as I can tell, just designated poll makers to make the public decide for them (a bad idea imo)
What? WarCouncil is most definitely the governing body in the community. This war they have been asking for a lot more feedback than usual but they still govern the site. Who else would be in charge? Somebody has to do it.




As i've said, peacetime should be as close to non-existant as possible imo. All more peace time would do is make more people disinterested.
I don't think we would need to have more peacetime if we had shorter wars. I think it could be possible to create a system that allows for near continuous participation while still allowing adequate time to plan. I could see a one week peacetime every 4-6 weeks being okay. We already do something very similar by taking breaks for holidays.