@Gothix said in What challenges should guild alliances face?:
There is a very simple solution for collision issue, that many MMOs are already using.
Player collision exists (NPCs can be excluded from this to prevent abuse), and works full time (even in cities), however, if you want you can activate sneak mode where your movement becomes slower, but you can "pass through" the crowd.
Slower movement makes sense, realism wise, you are pushing through and thus moving slower, and also makes sense so there is a drawback with that mode so people wouldn't just have it activated full time.
So if at any time someone "boxes you" near mailbox "for the lolz" you can just activate sneak mode and move away.
Sounds annoying! 
@Alexian said in What challenges should guild alliances face?:
@Roccandil said in What challenges should guild alliances face?:
They already can. Leaving the alliance at a critical time will do exactly that.
That shouldn't be your only recourse and requires the presence of someone with the UI permissions to drop out of the alliance at the appointed time.
Imagine, if you will, at the Red Wedding - arguably the ultimate betrayal/false flag in contemporary fiction - Walder Frey had to put "The Rains of Castamere" on loop because he had to unfriend Robb Stark from Facebook, change his banners, and get written permission to shank him first.
No, the whole point about alliances is that they should be tenuous if you don't put in the work and that even then there's no guarantee of anything.>
Why? Honestly, an alliance is an alliance. If it's modeled in-game, I see no good reason to be able to attack each other. Otherwise, it's meaningless. If you don't want alliances supported in-game at all, and have them be unofficial, so be it, but I'd much rather have them supported.
The problem I see is that you're thinking tactically, not strategically, about friendly fire and betrayal.
How so? 
You only get one shot at betrayal. If I were going to betray an ally, I wouldn't worry about dropping tags, perms, and surprising a zerg: that's small potatoes, even if I win the battle.
Rather, I'd maneuver my "ally" into a strategic position that I could then exploit to utterly destroy them. Never do an enemy a small injury, and all that.
And in that sense, an official in-game, no-friendly-fire alliance helps me, because it raises a false sense of confidence.
Maintain, I can see that, negotiate, definitely not. That is, negotiation should be entirely up to the players; the game shouldn't intrude on that process. Once an alliance has been agreed upon, however, I want the game to enforce it (include any appropriate maintenance).
Yes, that's precisely what I mean: the players should be able to negotiate the style and nature of the alliance. AO treats "alliances" like one-size-fits-all empires with lord-vassal relationships.
In AO, the whole lord-vassal thing seems to me largely inconsequential. No one is forced into an alliance, which means you can enter an alliance on your terms.
I agree.
You say that... and yet disabling friendly fire will make it much, much easier for alliances to gain and retain control. They won't have to worry much about battlefield tactics and positioning; critical betrayals by allies will be telegraphed and much harder to pull off.
Again, you're enmeshed in mere tactics. Remember, you can only betray someone once. Make it count at a strategic level!
Absolutely. Disabling friendly fire in no way hurts that. Again, the kind of friendly fire you're talking about is minor, and suited mostly for griefing.
Not at all. Enabled friendly fire will compel guild and alliance military leaders to consider positioning and tactics much more carefully than OMG SWARM 'EM AND DROP AOEs HAHAHAHAHAHA KEEP CLICKIN TIL THEY'RE DEAD. They'll also have to wonder if their ostensible allies can and will betray them at a crucial point in the battle.
Zerg tactics in AO are not mindless clickfests, and I'm actually impressed at how much is involved in running and calling a successful zerg.
It would hurt -far- more if I were depending on Ally A to guard my back from Enemy B in a protracted war while I fought Enemy A on a different front, and Ally A decided to join my enemies. Friendly fire is entirely irrelevant to that level of betrayal.
They dovetail.
In your scenario, imagine Ally A has the option to actively attack you during the battle because of secret negotiations and arrangements with Enemy A. But, irony of ironies, unbeknownst to them you have negotiated a clandestine truce with Enemy B, who's tired of Enemy A's shenanigans, and they come to your defense when you're betrayed by Ally A!
And lo, no one has to pause to drop out of an alliance UI and telegraph the damn thing in advance. My suggestion only enhances your scenario.
Not interested. Besides, if you really want to implement a tactical betrayal, dropping tags is fast and easy to plan for (it's a button click!).
I started with F2P, and my journey through Albion thus far has been quite interesting. I haven't felt choked at all by the alliance system, and I've seen all kinds of dynamic and exciting political culture.
I started when the game launched in July 2017.
And you may not be choked because your philosophy has been, by your own admission, to join bigger alliances for endgame content. 
Speaking of...
I don't have a problem with smaller guilds joining alliances to experience endgame content. I actually like how easy Albion's system makes it for a new guild to get in on the action and start learning.
I don't have a problem with that either. But smaller guilds shouldn't feel compelled to do so because it's impossible to dislodge the "big dogs" due to the game's mechanics.
Who said compelled? Besides, I don't expect a brand-new guild to instantly be able to participate on their own in endgame; I'd think that would disappoint me in any game.
Rome wasn't built in a day, and all that.
You do understand that that's how TBI, our mutual alliance, was formed, correct? Members of SUN, one of the most powerful guilds in AO, specifically formed a guild and alliance because it wasn't really feasible for most guilds to get a taste of endgame content under the extant system. TBI was sponsored and patronized by SUN's leader, Franksinatra, until the others got it up and running.
And even then, they had to pay a mercenary GvG team to gain any traction. When that team bounced, TBI was screwed.
I see this as the developers attempting to improve the game, while keeping accessibility to large alliances intact for players and guilds. That's their decision, and I can understand it.
That's a heck of a spin! 
But that's how I see it.
These updates occurred because AO's system made it virtually impossible to challenge and dislodge big alliances. Per AO's own staff:
The Future of Guilds, Alliances and Outlands
The most universal feedback we received focussed on limiting the influence of large alliances and the ability of new guilds to compete in the territory ownership gameplay in the Outlands.
Yep. And it makes sense. To compete with the veterans, at a minimum, you need a big pool of players, you need experienced shotcallers, you need organization, and you need top-tier players with depth of top-tier gear to do GvGs (which by definition excludes new players).
The experienced people who can provide that are already in big alliances. A brand new alliance of brand new guilds shouldn't be expected to compete with the big dogs, and frankly, I wouldn't want them to be able to.
On the other hand, I'm all for there being enough territory that the veteran alliances can't take it all. But that's more a question of scale than system.
To be honest, I really don't like how black zones work, but not because of big alliances (or lack of friendly fire). It simply doesn't feel like home.
I can't link to my personal island there, there are no real markets there, and it simply "feels" like Caerleon and the royal cities are the actual home areas. I go into the black zone for war or resources, but despite territories changing hands, and home plots, and resource plots, there's no real feeling of city-states there, and I always come back to the royal continent to do my real business.
If I were to change AO, that's the first thing I'd look at: encouraging people to shift completely into the black zone. Let people move islands to home plots; maybe allow home plots to be grown into actual cities, or something, while making it harder to project power. (Allow deep expansion, as opposed to broad expansion.)
Maybe a guild could only own a home plot and adjacent territories, which would allow more guilds to own territory. At that point, I might drop GvGs entirely and consider balancing alliances within the context of a long-term world (like EVE Online).
Don't think I'd ever go for friendly fire or collisions, though!
