Hey everyone,

I've been thinking about the Clan Wars cap occasionally, and I wanted to share my opinion. I think the Clan Wars player cap should be reduced from 40 to 20 per team.

Why? There are various reasons. I understand that Clan Wars is meant to encourage a high volume of players to play the game. I also understand that, at the end of the day, this is Fizzer's business, and he should do the thing that encourages the most number of people to play. But does the current Clan Wars system do that? I don't think so.

PROBLEMS WITH CURRENT SYSTEM

Currently, only 2 (or possibly 3) clans have the activity level to win a Clan Wars - The Master clan, M'Hunters, and Two Steps From Hell. Being a member of one of these clans, the current system benefits me; I can be pretty sure my clan will do reasonably well every season. But that's the problem. I believe the "40" cap actually serves more as a barrier to people playing Clan Wars than anything else. Towards the end of Season 3, the number of people playing dramatically slowed down; pretty much only the Master clan and M'Hunters were playing.

The 40 cap makes it difficult for other clans to compete, or for new clans to enter the market. The current system does not incentivize the creation of new clans at all. It incentivizes being on 2-3 40 player teams. Essentially, the number of active players in Clan Wars in the current system is capped at essentially 80-120.

ADVANTAGES OF NEW SYSTEM
However, if you reduce the cap per team to 20, a lot changes. Suddenly a lot more clans become viable contenders to win, and a lot more people play. It seems counter-intuitive, but I believe lowering the cap actually increases the number of people playing Clan Wars. Instead of just a few clans of 40 people regularly playing, you have potentially dozens of clans of 20 people playing. I looked over the clans list, and there are many many clans with around 20 people. Suddenly, they are all incentivized to play.

Not only do I think more people will play if the limit is changed, I think the quality of the play will change dramatically too. Currently, I believe quality has been sidelined. The most important factor for winning Clan Wars is simply having 40 people willing to play everyday. Although getting 20 people to play everyday may be difficult too, it will be far more attainable of a goal. And then, the real focus will be on making sure the games are played as well as possible, rather than simply playing all 40 games for the sake of playing them.

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To sum up, I think the Clan Wars limit per team should be changed from 40 to 20. I think this change will actually encourage more people to play Clan Wars, and also encourage higher quality play. At the end of the day, which sounds better to you? A system where there are only 3 viable NBA teams, where the most important factor in winning basketball is just having all 40 of your members show up? Or having potentially dozens of viable NBA teams, with an emphasis on quality, where there can be cool upsets and cool wins people didn't expect? Which would make for a more exciting game???

Interesting point regarding a potential problem with CW, but don't think you have the right solution.

You have a point that many clans aren't viable in CW, and lowering the cap to 20 would likely make smaller clans more competitive but it would stifle participation in the larger clans. Primarily the top 3 M, MH, TSFH for sure but also other clans that actually have high participation.

Currently, large clans can for the most part just open the gates and let whoever wants to play participate, but if it's suddenly limited to 20, now the clan has to limit/select who participates to remain competitive in CW. And players who don't make the cut then have to decide whether they're happy sitting out of CW or switch clans to be able to participate.

CW is casual competition, so competing inside a clan to represent in a casual competition is odd. And having to change clans to similarly compete also seems odd & unfortunate to have to be forced to choose.

Also keep in mind that you don't have to be in the top 3 of CW to get value from it - just keep playing and earning territories and you'll get Territory Rewards. You're not competing with the other clans for this beyond just winning games. So keep playing, keep winning, keep earning Territory Rewards. Any clan should be capable of putting together members that can snag at least a few of these each season. Reducing # of players = reducing # of wins = reducing # of Territory Rewards or at least needs an adjustment to how they are awarded. Having a way to keep earning Territory Rewards even if you're not high in Rank is important to incite participation.

Maybe some others can come up with some other ideas for how to improve the chances for small to medium clans?

Maybe not capping # of participants at all (not even @ 40, not that it matters tbh), but capping the # of games per day that can count? So that way everyone (or close to it) that wants to play can still play, but a given day can only give a fixed # of wins. This way it still rewards clans with high participation, but limits the benefit they can get from it.

Edited 6/22/2021 09:38:06

i would also say that saber rattlers has enough activity to get a high score

I feel like there could a possible solution would be to split who clans are into different leagues so that top clans don't have to face bottom clans. If in case that it happens, top clans would get less wins and more loses for that match, and the bottom clans would get more wins and less losses in that match.

so diffrent CW's?

i assume that the prize pools would have to be adjusted then so if u get 1st-3rd in each one u get a certain amount but not as much as the league above u.

Hmm, I'm open to other ideas on how we can address this issue about the current system of Clan Wars; perhaps we can discuss it in this thread. But I'm still of the opinion that reducing the cap to 20 would be the best solution right now.

Krinid is right that it would encourage competition within some clans -- but the emphasis is on some. Look at Clan Wars Season 3. Only the Masters and M'Hunters had more than 20 people playing almost every day. Not even Two Steps From Hell had that. Only those two clans would really be affected.

On the other hand, those 2 clans are only really affected because the current system encouraged mass recruitment. Both the Masters and M'Hunters have been recruiting extensively; I, for example was one of the many recruited. But there were many clans (including Python for example) who declined to recruit extensively just for Clan Wars.

If there are people within a clan who are unable to play due to the cap, they could always create a new clan and play. By limiting the cap to 20, you're also limiting the barrier to entry of new clans to compete. You're right; Clan Wars is meant for casual players. But that's exactly why it shouldn't have divisions, and clans who will always win above everyone else.

As a result of posting this thread, I received the following message from a player (I will keep anonymous) - "can I please join your clan I play clan wars every day and have won 5 games for my clan already but they only have 3 teritories and will earn their next in 7 wins!!!!!! And I am sure you want to beat the master clan and be the true master hunters."

I don't think this player should have to feel like he HAS to join my team to have a chance to win. I get it, there are other rewards for Clan Wars. But let's be real; the biggest reward is winning. And I don't like the idea of 2-3 clans monopolizing the entire Clan Wars market.

Why dont we allow clans to have multiple teams playing? So with a max of 20 ppl larger clans can have 2-3 teams while smaller clans can also join and have a chance to win?

i think lowering the max could make it more competitive but that would penalize the clans that have gone out of their way to grow for the clan war

the idea of clans having "alliances" or "joining up" seems rly cool but whats to stop MH and masters from teaming up every season lmao

Its good if they team up tbh..... Since they will always come first and other clans will be one rank ahead of what they are suppose to be :P

Also, the value of Excel will grow if teaming up starts...

We have to be careful what is put in place here. If the target is to disrupt the top 3 winners, how does this differ from the "Masters are too good" problem discussed in the following thread? https://www.warzone.com/Forum/557523-problem-free-wins?Offset=0

As Masters has both (a) strong players, and (b) recruited to exceed in CW, they deserve to be winning, so changing the rules so other clans have a better shot at toppling them is a bit odd feeling. And let's be honest, if you change the rules, they'll just adapt and as long as it's still skill based in the end, they're likely to still end out in the top 3 at least. If we reduce it to 20, they're still going to keep winning 95% of their games, just with 20 players instead of 40 - so likely still winning but with less coordinated effort required, and maybe the other clans will be closer in the race, but still losing.

MH is similar, has lots of strong players and high participation - so essentially everything I just said above for Masters applies to MH as well. TSFH has a couple good players and a bunch of mediocre ones and medium participation. Imho, TSFH is tbh within reach of the other clans if they got serious. Compete either on participation, skill (win more) or both.

But if the target of a rule change is to disrupt the top 3, in essence topple M or MH ... think we need a new goal. It should just focus on making things fair.

But right now M & MH vying for 1st & 2nd is b/c they have the highest # of skilled players, so change the rules up, and that's not going to change. And if they're actually making use of the 40 player cap, bringing it down to 20 means the folks they just recruited may leave and start up a new clan. Essentially this breaks up M into M1 & M2, and MH into MH1 and MH2, and guess what ... they'll end up ranking something like this:

#1 M1
#2 MH1
#3 M2
#4 MH2

So problem not solved?

M2 & MH2 may end up being new clans made to compete in CW. Or maybe the players that leave will end up joining Python, THD or Excel (just throwing out random clan names), but they'll also be displacing players already playing in those clans (b/c they have to if they want to be competitive in CW, which of course they do as that's why they joined M & MH to begin with).

Really don't think shrinking the cap is the answer. Also don't think the goal of displacing the top clans should be the goal. If they're the best clans, (a) they deserve it, and (b) they'll just adjust to the new rules and remain at the top.

I agree - the goal is not to disrupt the the top competitors; I obviously want the M'Hunters to keep doing well personally. My goal is to make the playing field more open, and more free.

As someone who will be a lawyer, I can't help but make a legal analogy. The current system, in my opinion, puts an unfair barrier to entry to a new individual/clan trying to join the "market" of clan wars. If this is the real world, I'd argue that this unfair barrier to entry, in effect, has created a monopoly in certain clans, which raises anti-trust concerns. Obviously this is not the real world, and Fizzer is not beholden to make the system as free and open as possible.

But, all things being equal, it should at least be the goal right? Especially if it helps warzone too? I legitimately think more people would play if this issue is solved.

Just get rid of member cap and we are good to go

meanhile clans with 242 members ;)

Also, personally, I think droggelbelcher's solution is the best. It opens the playing field, while also not penalizing the top competitors. If the M'Hunters and Masters have 40 good players for Clan Wars, surely they will have 20 good players logically. And multiple teams means that there won't be terrible competition within a clan.

The problem is, as you stated, that the top clans have both numbers AND good players. Cap of 20 would actually not change their placement, it would just prevent some of their players from playing. Multiple teams is an option, but fairly big effort to implement for Fizzer I assume.

What it will do is bring clans with big numbers but not a mass of great players down (like TLA, Excel, Saber-rattlers, TSFH as well) and clans with less numbers but lot of great players up (like Python). That effect however would be MUCH smaller than you think, if even noticeable for most clans. We were 4th last season with about 300 wins, all but 22 of those were scored by our top20 players. That number is likely to be even smaller for most clans below us.

Idea of CW is for it to be the first place where you go play semi-competitively, lets keep it so that everyone who wants can do that.

@Shamu
Agree with you on points except the proposed solution, Shamu. So in that sense, I agree w/Naviiso, that essentially this pretty much only affects Masters & MH, everyone else stays roughly the same, and how Masters & MH adjust to the new system must just crowd out all the other clans even more.

How would multiple teams work? Would these intraclan teams compete against each other or just other clans?

And if we went that route, is it still Clan Wars or is it just Team Wars now?

And doesn't that just result in the rankings I stated before?

1st place - Masters team 1
2nd place - MH team 1
3rd place - Masters team 2
4th place - MH team 2
5th place - TSFH (don't think they can split into a second team)
6th place and after - everything else stays more or less the same.

He could get rid of the player cap and simply restrict it to 20 clan wars games per clan per day. This would make it more accessible to smaller clans and still allow a lot of players in larger clans to participate. This would allow people to take a break or go on vacation without feeling like they are letting down the clan.

Some other changes that might improve participation:
1. Make getting all the territory rewards achievable for more clans
2. Offer an alternate reward for non-Idle players

He could get rid of the player cap and simply restrict it to 20 clan wars games per clan per day.

20 wins per day, not games. A clan can still play once per player per day, but only 20 wins per day would be counted. Hopefully there would be a mechanism where playing more would still gain benefit outside of the CW Ranking, perhaps towards the Territory Rewards or something of that nature (rewards where you aren't competing with others for, just achieve the criteria and your clan gets it), but wins counted towards the territories on the map for CW Rank are capped at 20 per day. This way playing more than 20 games still has benefit (can make up for a few lost games) so we're still rewarding participation.

For "Territory Rewards", maybe total # of wins could be tracked separately are rewards based on 1st win, 5th win, 10th win, 50th win, 100th win, 200th win, etc, rather than 1st territory, 3rd territory, 5th territory, 10th territory, etc, and the territories would count only for Rank.

I think it's important that players don't have to track and be informed about how many games their clan has played on a given day to know whether you're even eligible to play a game or not. If you meet your own eligibility requirements (only once per 24h period) then you should be able to play, just a matter of whether a win would count toward Rank or not.

It's already a pain in the ascii to deal with the factors such as 'play once per 24h' (which likely isn't your native time zone) + the 4h timeslots + # of and which templates available in that particular slot, so we don't need yet another factor to work around (# of games played by your clan in the 24h period).