Poaching

[DeletedUser]

It has become a very annoying trend that some of the higher ranked fellowships are trying to poach our members, and I'm sure that other fellowships are experiencing this.

We recently had some vacancies due to some leaving, taking a break or just not logging in any more; and we managed to fill all our vacancies by applicants for those vacancies, however we didn't approach members of other fellowships to join us - this has been noticed by some of the higher FS who feel that perhaps some of our existing members aren't happy with those people we took on... do you really think we would do anything without the agreement of our members? We aren't a dictatorship, we play because we want to and we like to keep our members happy.

One of our leavers tried to poach members via FS Chat before leaving due to some system within the new fellowship which involved recruiting from the old fellowship... let's just say that that departure came sooner than had been anticipated by the member.

If you can't make your fellowship attractive to new people then maybe you should be looking at how to do so. We filled our vacancies by applicants alone, so why can't you?

 

[Pauly7]

I feel your pain. I have lost a few that way. Also, I agree. I wouldn't ever recruit from existing fellowships.

Part of me, however, thinks that there is another way to look at this and that is that if one of my fellows decides to leave to join a different fellowship then either a) I'm not doing enough to make my fellowhip an atttactive place or b) the outgoing fellow lacks integrity and therefore is not the sort of person that I want to keep. (Actually I mostly console myself that it's option B!)

 

[Rimella]

My feeling is that it is a free country. Yes it is annoying,, but it's the fs members prerogative to go wherever they feel best.

If your fs is well managed and your members are happy, they'll not feel they want to move, evebn if they are ranked within the 100 best people in the game site. If people are unhappy for any reason, it's easier than RL, they leave and go elsewhere... and you find other people who will fit better, have a stronger fs and get rid of any unwanted unpleasantries.

I recently had 3 members approached by ohters and although I could see why they were asked, I was so delighted to see they wanted to stick with us, just because we are a big family really.

 

[Killiak]

My feeling is that it is a free country. Yes it is annoying,, but it's the fs members prerogative to go wherever they feel best.

If your fs is well managed and your members are happy, they'll not feel they want to move, evebn if they are ranked within the 100 best people in the game site. If people are unhappy for any reason, it's easier than RL, they leave and go elsewhere... and you find other people who will fit better, have a stronger fs and get rid of any unwanted unpleasantries.

I recently had 3 members approached by ohters and although I could see why they were asked, I was so delighted to see they wanted to stick with us, just because we are a big family really.

Certainly, it is a free "country", so people are allowed to go wherever and whenever they want.

However, I also find the poaching in and of itself to be both annoying and lacking in decency. Fellowships struggle for (good) members, especially on Arendyll, and everybody knows it. For any fellowship to then, whilst promising the proverbial mountains of gold, try and whisk/tempt people away is just poor form imo.

It's what the recruitment forum is for, it's what fellowship overview texts are for. People who are unhappy will be out looking for a new place anyway.
And if you absolutely MUST message people, just try the ones without a fellowship.

 

[Lelanya]

Folks I hear you and I have a sneaky suspicion about who you mean too! They 'poached' a player of mine but I was gracious and he returned to us a few weeks later
Just because they cannot hang on to players is no reason to take it out on the rest of us

 

[DeletedUser3985]

We filled our vacancies by applicants alone, so why can't you?

You can't expect everyone to play the same way you do.

However, I also find the poaching in and of itself to be both annoying and lacking in decency.

I agree that it's somewhat annoying, disagree with the lack of decency. Is it indecent to offer someone a job if they already have one? I don't think so.

It's what the recruitment forum is for, it's what fellowship overview texts are for. People who are unhappy will be out looking for a new place anyway.
And if you absolutely MUST message people, just try the ones without a fellowship.

From my experience, the recruitment forum is a very lacklustre recruiting tool. Very few people use this forum and the ones that do aren't necessarily the type of player you are looking for. Not everyone reads overviews, either.

Also, what if I was looking for high-scoring tournament players? The only way you can participate in tournaments is by being in a fellowship so that would mean I couldn't message anyone. Not a very convincing argument.

 

[Pauly7]

From my experience, the recruitment forum is a very lacklustre recruiting tool. Very few people use this forum and the ones that do aren't necessarily the type of player you are looking for. Not everyone reads overviews, either.

I agree with this. When I'm recruiting I always put a message in the relevant forum here and in the whole past year I've had zero success from doing that. Zippo. Nada.

On the other hand, for players searching for fellowships I think the forum is very effective.

 

[Killiak]

I agree that it's somewhat annoying, disagree with the lack of decency. Is it indecent to offer someone a job if they already have one? I don't think so.

I find the comparison with a real life job, where you make actual money to provide for your family, to be an extremely poor comparison.
That said, I find pushy headhunters to be extremely annoying and indecent folk as well. So I guess we just have different values in life.

Also, what if I was looking for high-scoring tournament players? The only way you can participate in tournaments is by being in a fellowship so that would mean I couldn't message anyone. Not a very convincing argument.

We found three of them without resorting to poaching. Doing it our way comes with its own rewards, it seems.

 

[Lelanya]

You can't expect everyone to play the same way you do.


I agree that it's somewhat annoying, disagree with the lack of decency. Is it indecent to offer someone a job if they already have one? I don't think so.


From my experience, the recruitment forum is a very lacklustre recruiting tool. Very few people use this forum and the ones that do aren't necessarily the type of player you are looking for.

I find many read my posts.

Not everyone reads overviews, either.

Agree with you there.

Also, what if I was looking for high-scoring tournament players? The only way you can participate in tournaments is by being in a fellowship so that would mean I couldn't message anyone. Not a very convincing argument.

You attract serious tourney players by always scoring 10 lol

 

[m4rt1n]

I don't mind other fellowships approaching me, it happens at least weekly, last week I got 3 different offers all friendly and I kindly declined them all, and got a reply from 2 fully accepting and understanding my decision.

Arendyll, is the reason in my opinion, hugely difficult to recruit new active players, and guy's see me weekly in the top 50 tournament list.

 

[cwgiii]

I don't know why, but I agree that recruiting (specifically in Arendyll) is insanely time consuming and inefficient. I wish we (Archmages and/or players at large had better tools to sort through the chaff (at least eliminate the inactive players from our search pool). Other insight would be helpful like sort capability for those interested in joining a fellowship, or opt out if totally not interested, or sort by preferred boosted goods. Many other criteria could be helpful (fight/negotiate strategy, tournament participant, FA participant, trade strategy, AW owner/interests, etc,) Anything would be better than simply churning through the ranking lists blindly.

 

[DeletedUser]

Very few people use this forum and the ones that do aren't necessarily the type of player you are looking for

On the other hand, for players searching for fellowships I think the forum is very effective.

@cwgiii if you don't already know about this site, you may wish to check out https://www.elvenstats.com/ . Might be helpful.

 

[cwgiii]

if you don't already know about this site, you may wish to check out https://www.elvenstats.com/ . Might be helpful.

I have been meaning to investigate it. Once the FA is wrapped up and I start recruiting again, I will do so.

Thanks

 

[DeletedUser2838]

Personally I don't see a problem with poaching. People join a fellowship for different reasons and after a period of time their strategy may have changed. Also as you lose players through the natural wastage of becoming inactive, and as you bring new people in the character and ethos of the FS may change. If a player is approached by another FS, and chooses to move on, that is because your FS is not satisfying their requirements. Who are you to stop that, and why do you want someone who is not 100% happy in your fellowship to stay with you?
Searching for unattached players is an extremely long and tedious and generally fruitless task. Most solo players are solo for a reason - they don't want to join a FS, at least those with a reasonable score. Solo playing is very different from FS play. Being solo players they are set up to be self sufficient and so tend to develop all manufactories, boosted and unboosted. We've had some experience of bringing in solo players who then want to continue to be solo players - but in a FS, what's the point? You can explain until you're blue in the face that their method of play is inefficient and slowing them down, but few get it and sell off their unboosted units - and while holding all manufactories they tend not to need to trade (not exactly useful for your FS) and often are not bothered by tournaments and Fellowship Adventures because they have little if any knowledge or experience of them. They often don't make good FS players. On the other hand there is a reasonable expectation that a new member you've poached from another FS is fully conversant with with FS-play.

 

[DeletedUser3985]

I find the comparison with a real life job, where you make actual money to provide for your family, to be an extremely poor comparison. That said, I find pushy headhunters to be extremely annoying and indecent folk as well. So I guess we just have different values in life.

Perhaps you're right so I'll try another analogy: is it indecent to offer someone a place in your amateur indoor soccer team if they're already in one? I don't think so. And are all "headhunters" pushy? Doubtful. Maybe we do have different values. I appreciate liberty and since it isn't against the game rules and isn't hurting anybody I don't see the problem.

We found three of them without resorting to poaching. Doing it our way comes with its own rewards, it seems.

I'm glad you've found a solution that works for you. To each their own.

 

[DeletedUser]

I don't know why, but I agree that recruiting (specifically in Arendyll) is insanely time consuming and inefficient. I wish we (Archmages and/or players at large had better tools to sort through the chaff (at least eliminate the inactive players from our search pool). Other insight would be helpful like sort capability for those interested in joining a fellowship, or opt out if totally not interested, or sort by preferred boosted goods. Many other criteria could be helpful (fight/negotiate strategy, tournament participant, FA participant, trade strategy, AW owner/interests, etc,) Anything would be better than simply churning through the ranking lists blindly.

We did use Elven Stats to double check on things like claims of how much people do in tournaments etc, its a really good tool but it would be great if there was something like this in game to make the whole system faster.

There are various people without a FS and it would be helpful to know when they last played as it saves sending multiple mails to people who have quit entirely.

And, slightly off topic, I'd love to know when inactives within our own fellowship last logged in, maybe a traffic light system such as in Tribal Wars, where red means they've been gone for at least 5 days!

 

[cwgiii]

I agree Lisica. To me, Elven Stats is a great decision making tool, once you have a prospective. We desperately need some sort of filtering in game to help even start the process. Currently, it is like looking for that needle in a hay stack to even get a response. The time involved to recruit is just prohibitive for anyone that has a job, IMHO.