I would certainly support a lifting of any cap. I would be interested in knowing why a cap exists, but if Cryptic can lift the cap or get rid of it all together, it would certainly be very helpful.
This is not about one fleet! this is a request to benefit all fleets that are approaching their member count. At some point something will have to be done.. why not now?
It might not be neccessary to increase the cap, perhaps just changing what the cap was actually on. Perhaps if the cap were changed to accounts rather than characters. 500 accounts rather than 500 characters would certainly be nice. You could also look at putting something in where new characters automatically got invited to the fleet.
Either way I've got 7 characters at the moment but I don't have all of mine in the fleet because I don't want to take up the room so some way of tackling this issue would certainly be a good thing in my opinion. I am sure Cryptic put in and set the cap as they did for a reason but I think it might be worth reviewing it now. I can see this problem only getting worse as time goes on especially if and when fleet bases get introduced to the game.
I do see two potential issues with increasing the cap though.
1) The fleet management system that exists within the game. Personally I find it difficult to keep track of who is at the right rank, who had been moved where and what is happening with the fleet bank as it is. It would be lovely if you had tools to search through these records and sort them better (such as by character or by account).
2) The size of the fleet banks which is an issue in its self but one very much linked to the number of members within a fleet. At the moment in UFP we have far too many people spending their in-game time keeping on top of the fleet bank. I would love it if this were doubled in size or even bigger and perhaps make some improvements such as adding ways to sort through things much like the exchange, if someone needs a shield could they not just go to ship shields and put in the level and see what comes up from the bank.
If there is some kind of technical database issue that is the reason for this cap, or some other reason the cap can't be lifted, then allowing a fleet to head up an alliance of related or otherwise allied fleets might be a possible solution. I'm thinking along the lines of the Guild Wars alliance model, but hopefully more robust than that in terms of communications, access, and so on.
I do believe that character slots take up the most database size (and then the players ships within that), as for the fleet, I think they just contain a reference to a character slot... but I could be wrong.
In terms of removing inactive players - we have been doing this so far, however some players do tend to have Real Lives and so cannot always maintain an active level, obviously you have to reserve around 5% for these.
In terms of splitting into other fleets - what is the point really? We have looked into it, however the negatives outweight the positivies, its decentralising 3rdfleet staff, and bank access. Along with others, in most cases it doesnt work out. We did have a few fleets, for 3rdfleet, when it was the old fleet cap last year. Lets say we were very thankful when they raised the fleet cap. It was spreading the fleet thin.
I like Joe's idea. However, the basics of alliance tools within 3rdfleet, are not capable to allow the majority of fleets to do such a thing. I think this would be a good alternative, but (from my perspective) it is far more complex.
In terms of having a big fleet, ACES_HIGH - no its not a bad thing. There are great and fantastic reasons to have a large fleet, I am sure lotus, 12th and {UFP} will all agree. There are always active players, and a wide diversity. I know in 3rdfleet we have members across all timezones, so you are never alone when you play. It is also great to learn new things, and socialise with people you never could at home. We are in pararell to a Federation with a mixture of diversity, it is great, and in terms of the federation. The Federation would not split up, because it would lose its character, what makes the Federation, the Federation. The character and diversity, the fun and the games.
Hell, even WoW has a Guild cap of 400; that STO is able to get to 500 is impressive. As others have said, one solution is to create a Fleet for the Alts; or a Fleet for all your VA1s, etc; and then just make a Global channel that only Guildmembers across all your associated Fleets know about and join (that way you have Guild communication in game (assuming you aren't already using Ventrillo or Teamspeak); and you can continue just fine.
Yes please raise the Cap! Fleets need room to expand and grow. This is something I worry about as Fleet admiral, because both of our fleets (KDF and Federation) are close to hitting the member cap.
I think this should be taken as a good sign that the game has a rapidly increasing fan base and should be supported with features like an increased or removed fleet limit. Also consider adding the ability to form raid groups (groups of larger than just the current 5)
i've noticed at least with my fleet, we have a small player base but over 40 "memebers" because we all have multiple alts. maybe if they made it so it was just the @ handle that counted towards memebership numbers this would help?
I know that I would be very grateful for a fleet cap increase as I could roll some alts and not feel guilty about taking up valuable fleet member space for someone that may come a long and join, but still wanting it in the fleet so I can play with my friends! Please Cryptic, up the cap for us so we can stop fretting about it
I'm Vice Admiral Crystal Dayra of 3rd Fleet, I'm the one who routinely goes over the details and handles the fleet cleanouts as we get close to fleet cap of 500, this is the second time in the last 30 days that we've had to perform this fleet cleanout to try and freeup some space for new members. 29 days ago we managed to clear out 100+ spots removing only removing members who have been inactive for 90+ days, however our activity has really surged the last month or so, not only did we hit the cap again in less than 30 days but this time we were only able to free up 45 spots from members who have been inactive for 60+ days. I was also able to collect the following info, Of the remaining 455 characters in the fleet only 175 are alts, the remaining 280 characters are all active mains (less than 1 alt per main in the fleet) with a little over 90% being active within the last 30 days! (meaning a little less than 10% remain in the 30-60 day activity region).
We have of course been going over the options like other fleets in our situation but the idea of splitting alts into another fleet or somehow starting a second fleet isn't really a viable option for us as it would leave the second fleet lacking in attention as when players would be on their alts they would find it difficult to stay connected to what ever is going on in the primary fleet. Beyond that it would also prove difficult to manage as most of our leadership would remain in our primary fleet, so it would be hard to properly oversee.
There as of course other options we're still reviewing but ultimately the easiest way to fix the problem we and other fleets face would be to remove the cap so that we ultimately don't have to choose, as any alternative would have some sort of negative impact on our fleets future growth.
Comments
This is not about one fleet! this is a request to benefit all fleets that are approaching their member count. At some point something will have to be done.. why not now?
If you are against downsizing, you could try cleaning out alts. Limit members to one or two toons in the fleet.
Either way I've got 7 characters at the moment but I don't have all of mine in the fleet because I don't want to take up the room so some way of tackling this issue would certainly be a good thing in my opinion. I am sure Cryptic put in and set the cap as they did for a reason but I think it might be worth reviewing it now. I can see this problem only getting worse as time goes on especially if and when fleet bases get introduced to the game.
I do see two potential issues with increasing the cap though.
1) The fleet management system that exists within the game. Personally I find it difficult to keep track of who is at the right rank, who had been moved where and what is happening with the fleet bank as it is. It would be lovely if you had tools to search through these records and sort them better (such as by character or by account).
2) The size of the fleet banks which is an issue in its self but one very much linked to the number of members within a fleet. At the moment in UFP we have far too many people spending their in-game time keeping on top of the fleet bank. I would love it if this were doubled in size or even bigger and perhaps make some improvements such as adding ways to sort through things much like the exchange, if someone needs a shield could they not just go to ship shields and put in the level and see what comes up from the bank.
We have about a dozen personnel officers (a couple for each language and tech-tree division), and yes, we do.
Purge your member list , there will be a big percentage that dont even play anymore , as well as many alts that are never played too.
It will free up alot of room.
In my opinion, there is only one answer for population bloom. Castration.
In terms of splitting into other fleets - what is the point really? We have looked into it, however the negatives outweight the positivies, its decentralising 3rdfleet staff, and bank access. Along with others, in most cases it doesnt work out. We did have a few fleets, for 3rdfleet, when it was the old fleet cap last year. Lets say we were very thankful when they raised the fleet cap. It was spreading the fleet thin.
I like Joe's idea. However, the basics of alliance tools within 3rdfleet, are not capable to allow the majority of fleets to do such a thing. I think this would be a good alternative, but (from my perspective) it is far more complex.
In terms of having a big fleet, ACES_HIGH - no its not a bad thing. There are great and fantastic reasons to have a large fleet, I am sure lotus, 12th and {UFP} will all agree. There are always active players, and a wide diversity. I know in 3rdfleet we have members across all timezones, so you are never alone when you play. It is also great to learn new things, and socialise with people you never could at home. We are in pararell to a Federation with a mixture of diversity, it is great, and in terms of the federation. The Federation would not split up, because it would lose its character, what makes the Federation, the Federation. The character and diversity, the fun and the games.
At one point there was a cap of 400 in WoW (my old WoW guild hit it back in the day.; circa 2008)
I'm Vice Admiral Crystal Dayra of 3rd Fleet, I'm the one who routinely goes over the details and handles the fleet cleanouts as we get close to fleet cap of 500, this is the second time in the last 30 days that we've had to perform this fleet cleanout to try and freeup some space for new members. 29 days ago we managed to clear out 100+ spots removing only removing members who have been inactive for 90+ days, however our activity has really surged the last month or so, not only did we hit the cap again in less than 30 days but this time we were only able to free up 45 spots from members who have been inactive for 60+ days. I was also able to collect the following info, Of the remaining 455 characters in the fleet only 175 are alts, the remaining 280 characters are all active mains (less than 1 alt per main in the fleet) with a little over 90% being active within the last 30 days! (meaning a little less than 10% remain in the 30-60 day activity region).
We have of course been going over the options like other fleets in our situation but the idea of splitting alts into another fleet or somehow starting a second fleet isn't really a viable option for us as it would leave the second fleet lacking in attention as when players would be on their alts they would find it difficult to stay connected to what ever is going on in the primary fleet. Beyond that it would also prove difficult to manage as most of our leadership would remain in our primary fleet, so it would be hard to properly oversee.
There as of course other options we're still reviewing but ultimately the easiest way to fix the problem we and other fleets face would be to remove the cap so that we ultimately don't have to choose, as any alternative would have some sort of negative impact on our fleets future growth.