Fleet woes

Qr'Abrath

So, is it normal to only get 2 new members in almost 4 months? I've tried the invites, I've tried the personalized messages. It wasnt like this before, I had no problem with players joining my fleet even without invitations. My fleet has never been this low, this long. Pretty much takes away enjoying the game, as I watch my fleet destroyed.

eXo | SilverRose (retired)

Have you tried posting on fleet central, the STT discord, or Reddit? Very few of our recruits actually come from in game recruiting. Starbase also matters to a lot of people. If you're competing against fleets with a maxed starbase, that will hurt your odds if yours isn't finished.

Data1001

Good feedback from SilverRose. I'll add that even for established fleets, finding players willing to join up is easy. Finding good, active players who also fit in well with your fleet's "personality" is a lot more challenging. Our main fleet has had a lot more success with that by starting a secondary fleet, which initially started as our version of the minor leagues, from which we could get a sense of each of those players and then recruit for openings in our "main" fleet (although that group of folks has since grown into quite a respectable presence on its own, and has even beaten us in a few event rankings, from time to time).

Qr'Abrath

I've played this game almost 4 years and have had the fleet for several years. The last time I couldnt fill the fleet within a day or two was well over a year ago. That dry spell was 2 months. This one has been almost 4. I play other games that have clubs similar to the fleets. Ive never had dry spells like this. Yes, I've posted on Fleet Central. And update it every couple of weeks ( dont want to be a thread hog.) I've put in a ticket. But I shouldn't be having to go out on social media outside the game to beg for fleet members. We are down to 30 members. When I hit a handful, I'll probably be quitting the game. (And taking my money elsewhere.) Because it is no fun watching your fleet slowly get destroyed and then trying to build it back up. I suffered through it once already and this time around, I am losing any enjoyment of the game.

Qr'Abrath

And it isnt like it slowly drops off. One day I have 6 new members, then next 4 months I get 2?

Prime Lorca

I've always found recruiting to be the toughest part of games like this with a social element. Best thing I can say is to have fun. Sometimes it will rub off and you'll get players who want to join the fun.

MirrorVerse Jc

Interesting problem. My fleet rarely has openings, which are filled within 2 hrs. Then if that player is not up to our standard, (place holding but not playing, join then within 10 min log off) we boot them and another comes in Immediately. We dont really try to recruit. We just open the door and see who comes in. We usually boot 2-3 players before we get a keeper for 1 open slot.
I wonder if a disgruntled fleet mate has somehow warned ppl off from your fleet. When we do get new members it is always transfers from ppl not happy with inactive fleet they were in.
Sorry that this is causing such a problem you would quit the game. As mr Lorca suggested, we promote having fun, and having a place to be away from daily chaos.

Seven of One

Recruitment for 10F and all our fleets is shared by myself and @Prime Lorca [10F]. Generally Lorca posts here in the forums and I recruit via discord. 10F rarely has availability anymore and when we do we recruit directly from our sister fleets. FH has a discord policy and so doesn't recruit in game either. Fleet chat is so unreliable discord is essential for our communications.

The training fleet, which my alt is Admiral of, recruits through the game and discord. Its a level 57 starbase and all Captain levels can join. Generally its full within half an hour of kicking anyone.

Do you have captain level requirements? I find those lower level captains tend to stay with us. It's a shame that you're feeling you might have to quit because of it 😔

[10F] Emma Lorca

I'd like to return to [10F] if possible

Captain Q

Great feedback and advice from all above, thanks! Our fleet, while stable, is currently suffering from the same thing, even though we have an almost completed starbase, active sharing and active players, and when we play, we're in the top-100s. We too use an alternative communication medium (Slack) instead of in-game chat.

We'll give the above a try too!

Thanks everyone!

Fenster

I often feel the fleet invites are bugged. It is as if the invites fail for a few weeks and then we will get four or five joins in a single day. Almost like someone has to kick a script or trigger on the backend to make them work again.

Glenn Fiddich

I made sec account few weeks back. And I got option to get auto assigned to a fleet. I left an did it again got in the same fleet.. so prob. You where lucky fleet for this option that day...

Master Foo

Same thing happening here. We're not a top fleet by any means (level 110), but we do okay. We used to be able to fill our ranks literally within a day, we basically couldnt keep people away from our fleet. Nowadays, we cant get a single player to join and thats been a situation for weeks. We got 2 members drop by the other day, but again, slim pickings after that. Quite the change from like it was before.

Fenster

We are back in this state of no new captains now for about three weeks. Our starbase is maxed. I’ve sent 100s of invites. Can someone kick the script to make this work again.

Leperflesh

My fleet steadily recruits using nothing but the in-game recruit option. Our starbase is only level 23. What we do differently though is we're welcoming to casuals and level 10s and there's zero pressure to perform. Sure, it means we're non-competitive, but it also means that players can actually relax and just have a good time and hang out if they want.
Maybe there's a saturation of fleets & players who want the high-pressure, "you must complete x missions daily" competitive atmosphere? There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but... perhaps current global events are producing new players who just want to get their mind off of things and do some silly minigames and collect some little star trek people for a while.
Anyway we're pretty steady at 25 or so members, the admiral only kicks people who haven't logged in for at least 3+ weeks, and I think people like the name of our fleet.

It doesn't seem like there's a dearth of new players, particularly. It might just be that some long-time players are burnt out, or that several top fleets are all competing for the same smallish number of players who meet their high standards of play.

Gib - Admiral Mariners

I agree, there are not a lot of new players joining the game, and many of the older are already in fleets, if they want to be. Try putting something in Fleet Central to recruit from here.

Bylo Band

My approach to recruiting is basically zen. I trust that the people who need to find my fleet will find my fleet. Occasionally I'll try and recruit but it is not to definitely rush numbers, but more like a more aggressive zen, more like an awareness campaign than ad campaign. It kind of works, my fleet isn't full but we have fun and I've helped a lot of people improve.

But i also lose a fair amount of people, some to joining bigger fleets, but most to just going inactive, and I think the issue there is people just get discouraged. I had a really cool new person named Flamepunk join up several weeks back and really engage in chat, ask a ton of questions, post constant progress updates, I was loving it. Flamepunk would trash talk a bit during events despite being level 15 by proclaiming how they were going to rank to a certain threshold level, it was great for everyone. But then I think the progress stopped and when combined with a few of us hitting thresholds without really trying during that streak of faction events, it was just too much and Flamepunk has not been back for over a month. I don't have the heart to dismiss yet, but I have a strong feeling Flamepunk is gone forever, and that makes me sad.

I just get the sense that the game has a lot of new players, but if they have any ambition at all they quit after about a month when they realize they have no chance to catch up. Flamepunk is just the most recent example of this, it has been an ongoing trend for my fleet for quite a while now. I do my best to keep newcomers engaged, I hand out all manner of contact information, and i make myself available for questions/comments/advice/etc and it works for about a month, but sooner or later somebody in the fleet is going to clear threshold in a faction event in less than 2 days (usually me) and it just seems to be too demoralizing for them to continue. I wish I knew what to do about it, I'm tired of losing all the Flamepunks to the void of inactivity

Leperflesh

Being in an old fleet with a fully maxxed out starbase is a huge in-game advantage. It gives rewards in every single minigame. However, new players can't keep up or be significant in those fleets, and in fact many of them aren't interested in low-level players at all.
Conversely, new players joining younger fleets with lower starbases find themselves without the active support and community of a mature fleet, and without the bonuses. It takes years for a fleet to build up membership and build up starbases, though, so any newish player trying to launch their own fleet will soon realize it's a monumental task.

I think the solution is that starbases should be much faster to level up, or there should be tangible immediate rewards possible for smaller fleets with fewer, lower-leveled members, or both. As things stand now, there's stagnant mature fleets dominating the game, and then thousands of hopeless small fleets that can't effectively recruit and whose newbie members are disappointed and discouraged from continuing to play.

Shy Khan

Catch 22 with Starbase level. Can't build up the Starbase without members, can't get members without the Starbase.

Been slowly, SLOWLY building Steeler Nation over the years with a fractional membership and we're still only at level 68. I do enjoy occasionally make memes for our Fleet thread, though

Perhaps allow a fleet wide max donation amount rather than individual. For example, if there are only 30 members, allow each member a daily donation max of 1,000 rather 700, etc...