I think 3 slots per player are fine. If you want to award depth, it could be an idea to shorten the duration of clan league and allow to use 2 players per slot so they have less games and can focus on the ones they have.

Yeah current max of 3 slots per player isn't really a problem. I only wanted to jump on WG. :P

That said, TBest's talk about clans' second team reminded me of Developmental League back from CL7. It was a 6-clan (that's how many turned up on it) competition with less tournaments, played on Clan League templates, by CL clans, with players that were not in the main roster playing in A/B/C/D1/D2. Maybe it would be a nice idea to come back to? I think it could as well contain clans too 'small' to join "main" CL but not sure how many could be crammed into one division.

Tbest the only master i can remember we poached was pardon. You can claim we are so super bad guys, but it's a fact that we are just more attractive as a strategic clan than others, so not really surprising people ask us to join.

About the question of where players would come from if elite clans would have to recruit i wasn't talking about masters cause we got enough members. Also we let apprentice be a clan on their own and don't poach from them. We just give them the option to play and learn with top players and don't need them to feed us. Again i think you are misinformed or just salty. I guess i can take it as compliment

Pardon was double-poached :P.

I dont see a problem with taking rising players from other clans. Why should anyone have a problem with that?

If someone is vastly better than most of their clan (i am not referring to anyone in particular here), dont you want them to be in a clan with people who compliment their playstyle? It is like getting mad at a professional athelete that plays for years on a bad team and moves on in free agency.

Of course that clan could get better as well and rise to their level, but you cant be mad at the destination clan for recognizing talent. Most great clans on here are not like [20], which was great players coming together at once. Most are people who are similar and pretty good forming up and growing as a group. Masters did it that way, so did WG. We added a few people along the way that were already good if course, because people go inactive.

Most of their acquisitions were great players who were in clans that kindof folded. Dont hate on them for that.

Edited 6/9/2017 04:43:27

@MoD

Again i think you are misinformed or just salty. I guess i can take it as compliment

Afraid you are the misinformed one here. This is getting off-topic through, but talk to your clan mates as I believe I talked with one of them before. For me it's a thing of the past, but if you want to, just dm me. As I told him, it's not really the unsuccessful poaching attempts that bother me. It just bothers me that you say Masters are not poaching. Obviously I don't know how many masters have tried to poach, nor do I care. This is not about masters specifically, but poaching in general.

@Chirs

I dont see a problem with taking rising players from other clans. Why should anyone have a problem with that?

That is an extremely selfish view. Quite obviously you are taking a player from another clan. And quite obviously that is not well received. Poaching is not about someone leaving a clan, and joining another. It is about trying to recruit someone who originally had no intention of leaving.

It is like getting mad at a professional athlete that plays for years on a bad team and moves on in free agency.

It's like being mad at (insert 'football rich team here') for buying all the good players from other clans. Quite often accused of 'ruining' the sport. Whether you agree with that argument or not is your choice.

Anyway, part of issues of CL has in the past been about what makes a clan a clan. I see the minimum players requirement as part of that issue/discussion that is unresolved. For example a 1 person clan is quite clearly not a clan. How many players is the minimum for being a clan is quite subjective. (Add into the mix of active/inactive and what that means too.) For me I think 10 players would be a minimum size and 2-9 I would view as a ust a group of friends.

Not that I am trying to throw WG out of CL. After all WG has 15 members.

Edited 6/9/2017 13:05:35

you sound like there is a gun hold to the heads of players that swich clans

It's like being mad at (insert 'football rich team here') for buying all the good players from other clans. Quite often accused of 'ruining' the sport. Whether you agree with that argument or not is your choice.

w
is the reason you write the part of it being an indivdual chose "whether you agree with that argument"(sic) that you know that the analogy is very poor, so much that it is hard to even call it an analogy?

It is a quite common complaint that the rich football clubs buys all the talent from 'poorer' clubs. Some claims this benefits the individual players, while others claim this means that a smaller club will never be able to compete with the clubs backed by some rich prince from Qatar.

I find this a rather good analogy of poaching, as the concept is the same.

is the reason you write the part of it being an indivdual chose "whether you agree with that argument"(sic) that you know that the analogy is very poor, so much that it is hard to even call it an analogy?

I don't understand what you are saying here.

the hole argument whit the rich clubs are that they are rich and that theybuy all the players. so really its not same at all. if we compare wl to football, we are in the era before the rich clubs, the era that is implied to be the good age in this argument(normally)

Edited 6/9/2017 16:00:21

Warlight is a game. People are supposed to be having fun here. Why should anyone complain about someone moving to a new clan if they think it will enhance their experience playing this game?

Nobody forces someone to join GG or Masters or whatever "elite" clan. They choose to do it because they think it will improve their experience.

Of course I don't like it when someone leaves my clan go to another one, but how can I seriously complain about them doing what they think will make playing a game more fun for them?

This whole discussion seems a bit silly to me, and quite frankly is getting very off topic.

Edited 6/9/2017 15:59:17

I honestly expected that at least people would agree that poaching was bad. But the last few post has just shown me how deep the disconnect is between 'elite' clans and some of the other clans.

First. Leaving a clan to join another clan is not poaching. I am talking about players who are happy in their current clan and have no intentions to leave, being (attempted) to be recruited by other clans. For example what Beren thinks is the issue: "Of course I don't like it when someone leaves my clan go to another one" is not what anyone is complaining about. They are complaining when a clan is the instigator, not the player.

This whole discussion seems a bit silly to me, and quite frankly is getting very off topic.

Well, this is just how unimportant this issue is. This is part of my dm to mod.

I don't think 'elitist' is used as a joke or compliment but rather as an insult, by some players right now.

As Norman put it in the Div B thread.

As the newcomer to the A division we have one message to all the elite boys: Nobody has invited us but we are there now. Dozens of managers from other clans are gona root for us. You sucked them dry of their best players and they are counting on us to kick your butts. I can't promise them to win but what I do promise is that we are gonna poop the party!

I know some other clan managers have talked about an organized boycott of CL for example. Through I don't believe that will ever happen. As I stated a few times in the thread this is not just about masters, but rather how the '''elite''' clans are stealing players.

This is not about any one clan, but rather that the attitude of stealing players is perfectly acceptable and even the main way of recruitment for some people.

Just please open your eyes. It's pretty simple, and this is my guiding principle when recruiting.
1. Don't approach any players and ask them to join your clan, if they are already in a stable clan. Let them come to you.
2. Recruit from open games.
3. Asking someone to join a clan with an alt is not subject to the 1st rule.

If you think your clan is so great, you don't need to run after players. Just let them come to you.

Edited 6/9/2017 16:42:24

all the players that are happy avout being in there clan but swich at the first possibel opponunity haha....

also if it makes me an elitist to think that norman is fighting a largely made up battle, that not many cares about and looks whiny doing it with thouses comments so be it

also how would you stop the "stealing" of players.... it completly impossibel.

Edited 6/9/2017 17:01:20

If they were happy in their current clan, they would not leave at all. I have not left my clan, despite offers from other clans in which I have a lot of friends, because I am happy with my clan.

My approach to recruiting has always been like this.

1) identify a player in a clan that is either way better than the rest of their clan OR their clan has had mass exodus and they are one of the few good players left. I am not trying to get a player like Timinator to join WG (from Masters), despite how much we'd love to have him. That isn't cool IMO. Those players know they are good enough to join WG, so if they want to move, hopefully they will approach me then.

2) ask them how they/their clan is, how they feel about it, etc.

3) IF they hint at looking elsewhere, I ask/offer. If they are enjoying their clan, I leave it at that.

There are always exceptions, but that is generally my approach. I would not consider that poaching, even if I initiated the conversation. The conversation would not even progress unless they had the same realization that I did (that there are 'better' situations for them).

In the end Beren said it best. This is a game. Players should be in the best clan for them, whatever that looks like. If you want your players to stay in your clan, then make it a home for them that they don't want to leave (whatever that means). Clans that were not 'good' have become good in the past. Those players stayed in their clans, even though I am sure they could have left.

Edited 6/9/2017 17:43:04

stealing players

Players are not commodities that can be stolen. They are individual people with their own agency. If they are truly happy in their current clan, there is nothing a poaching clan can do about it. Who initiates a discussion is immaterial. The player has the final say. They will only leave the clan if they think that is best thing for them. What say should the members of the old clan have over what is best for someone else? If there was something more serious at stake here, then maybe rules could be instituted - by Fizzer - but I said it before. This is a game. We play it for fun.

or there could also be instituted some form of serfdom to solve this issue

Actually, I think its more of the larger rising clans, or recovering clans, such as Outlaws and GG, that end up doing more poaching then say, an established clan, such as Masters. As far as I know, Masters is correct in that they have not poached any players excepting pardon99. It also seems that their group has a general impetous not to poach. This goes for lynx and turtles as well. I can't recall the last player either clan has poached, if they ever, unless you can say promotion from 101st could be "poaching" (which I feel it is not, it is part of the arrangement of the clans).

I cannot tell you how many instances I recall of platinum trying to recruit players from other clans. Until I managed to make him stop, I remember him trying to recruit from FCC in its early days. Platinum has also recruited from T4R, and attempted to recruit from HK and EIC. With GG, I know that they have also attempted to recruit from FCC (I suspect DWF too). The last poach I remember, however, ONE! doing, is Pardon99 from FCC, and the last poach that I remember Masters doing is Pardon99 from ONE!. In reality, I think the perceptions are skewed towards the big clans we accuse of poaching, when in reality, its the secondary clans trying everything they can to match with the top that are actually the ones executing the poaching. We just end up blaming them, because its human nature to blame the top of the food chain. (Because it maximizes our chances of power gain in our own right.)

Truth to be told, its likely that more poaching happens lower than it does higher. And this makes me think the key to retention is indeed making your own clan an enjoyable and competative place to be. If it isn't that player is ripe to be stripped away by some other hungry second-tier clan looking for new blood.

Well, you have some yummy members, gota say. Looking at WG, I mainly see some old corpses hanging around, but looking at FCC, I certainly wana take a bite!

Like Beren said, even if someone is "poached", why is that an issue?

If a clan has a certain makeup...let's say they are a good sized clan with a bunch of people that get along nice, but most of them are not very good...that clan has a choice (when some players become good). You either re-mold yourself more like the good players. Or, you try to recruit more good players (or work hard to develop the ones you have). Or, do nothing and run the risk of the good players leaving.

I am not saying any one of those is right or wrong. To each their own. All I am saying is that you cannot expect people's standards to not change as they grow.

In the past, when I had a lot more time, I spent a good deal of time training and helping out 'non-elite' clans get better. I have done numerous training tournaments with other clans. Other people have too. I love to see clans have internal growth, but the clan has to buy into that mantra for it to work.

So wassup guys, I haven't played CL9 and not even a lot of warlight until a week ago because of a very busy college year. But I've read this hole poach talking, and I think I can talk a bit about it, especially since Aura just cited Outlaws and Platinum directly.

A year and half ago I actually was in VIW, stayed a long time in the clan, and before that, I was in BRFUDEW. On both these clans, I never really felt integrated in a group or participated in clan activities. I tried once or twice talking to people, but at the end because of inactivity, or maybe just lack of interest of others, I never really did anything on those clans.

If I recall correctly, I first encountered that irish potato we call plat, in a RT ladder game. He did ask me how VIW was, at the time I didn't really like or dislike the clan, I was really just neutral towards it. At the end he hinted I could join his clan, and so I did.

At the time, VIW was better ranked and had better players than platinum's 101st, which was really a weird clan. At the same time we were independent from Lynx, but kind of B clan of it, anyways, it was weird. Lynxes were supposed to help us and stuff, but at the time it didn't really work, and I only knew Zero and AG there.

We formed a compact workable group in 101st. Lots of good, active and most important, eager to improve players formed the bulk of the clan. We were just a bunch of good friends having a good time. I didn't ever regret leaving VIW for 101st. Plat did as a matter of fact approach other clan players, but he tried to find players that were just like me, wanting to improve, and to join a clan were they could fully integrate.

Then a bit of drama, then a lot of drama, then even more drama after that, made 101st crack: the core players weren't satisfied with the status of the clan regarding Lynx, in a system that didn't work for us at the time (you can probably find all the drama somewhere in the forums for y'all drama likers). So we left and created Outlaws.

We were arround 20 "platinum loyalists", the players that he recruited, which were also the CL lineup and the very engaged players of the clan. The hole processus was a mess, almost all the players were poached by the so-called "elite clans" at the time. You know how many players we did lose? Two. Out of 20, only 2 wanted to join the elite clans, and that considering that our own clan was in total chaos.

Now, even though I left for a couple of months, I come back to the clan for at least sometime, and I find old faces, new faces, but the spirit of the clan is the same. Players that I really consider friends, with which I'm glad to talk and play with.

So at the end of the day, it is about the players. Fuck the clans! If there was a stupid rule preventing players from changing clans for the CL, I would never have joined my clan, and find players I want to play with. Poaching will always happen, doesn't matter what.

A player is a person, and warlight is a game. People just want to improve their experience. If you want to prevent players from leaving your clan, instead of blaming others, offer them an environnement they want. And if you do that, I guarantee that no Beren, MoD, Chris or Platinum will be able to make them leave.

By the way, those two players went to Masters, so great point there, lol.

If anyone from FCC wants to join Outlaws, we'll trade Platinum for any number of your members.