Winning a world: By Conquest or Recruitment?

[Mathetes]

I just joined my first new world a few weeks ago (5K), after being very active in several of the old ones. There are features I really like about these new ones. But my enjoyment was staunched when all of the top players in the world were merged into our guild. I'm still in it ... I'm ranked fourth. But the competition just went from great to nothing instantly. Now, all that is left for 50 top players to take out a bunch of weaker ones. A few weeks from now, our guild will be declared victorious ... and this will be true. But not because of conquest, not really. When the method of winning a world is by recruiting all the top players ... so we don't need to conquer them, this is really a victory by recruitment. There's no reason to be proud of such an accomplishment .. not when all that is really done is taking out significantly weaker players and NO strong players. And this is how this world will be won.

Now, I'm not blaming Quark. It was not they who convinced my crowns to go this route. Yet it is perhaps a result of the Law of Unintended Consequences ... many of the guys just want the ticket to a guild world. And this is the easiest and surest way to accomplish this.

I understand this. But victory by recruitment is not competitive. And how long will Quark keep the competitive Valor players? I read a post by PwnLaw in another thread that activity is up. And I do not doubt his data. But what exactly does this data demonstrate? It might be helpful to consider: "How many top 20 players are attacking other top 20 players at different weeks into a world?" This would be a better measure of "competitive activity" than simply measuring total activity (and perhaps Quark is already measuring this!!!!). Otherwise, it might simply show activity of a bunch of top 50 players taking out everyone else. And where's the challenge in this?

So here is my suggestion. Create a few worlds with smaller guild size. I don't know anything about programming, but this seems like it would be easy to do -- after all, there are already worlds with different guild sizes. A guild of five players max would be uniquely challenging. While it is possible that the top five players would join together, it is perhaps more likely that there would be 10-15 guilds composed of the top 50-75. These small guilds would still ally together, but eventually would have to fight one another, creating a true battle royale! And many months later, five players will be able to say that they truly conquered the world!

[Mattyb82]

I'm in a 1k world right now and it has turned out to be a fight between 2 guilds, both with the worlds heavyweights in each guild so they are fighting it out. But I and a few other not so strong players in the world have seen a lot of guild jumping when one side takes an advantage. It would be interesting to see a guild jump limit of say 5, meaning you can only leave and join a guild 5 times after that you stay with that guild or go on your own.

[Nachos2]

I really like the sound of a world with a 5-10 guild member limit. I've played in quite a few of the TBS worlds and in every single 1 the merging you spoke of has happened. All the so called "gold spenders" left their guilds after a week or two and formed a super guild comprised of the too 15-20 players. I don't like it, and I don't condone it. I think smaller guild sizes would help it.