Proposal
Instead of using a recent snapshot of the number of active clans, I suggest using a recent snapshot of the number of clans that have exalted dragons. To reduce funneling abuse, the snapshot should involve at least 4 weeks, probably more. Additionally, Irien made a great point that the exact number of weeks should be hidden, which would make funneling activities more difficult to plan.
Depending on the Devs' discretion, the recent snapshot period could be 4-8 weeks or perhaps a longer running average. The longer the period, the lesser the effects of "funneling" to a small amount of exalters. (The period probably shouldn't be too long, to reduce noise over time and database strain.)
I believe that this system would require more work to abuse than an "opt in" towards Dominance or a "number of active exalters during that week" solution. Taking a longer average snapshot can capture regular exalting activities and large battles alike. This would also effectively act as "battle weariness" for flights pushing for consecutive weeks, because the expected amount of participation during a battle is higher, resulting in a higher number of recent active exalting clans for flights attempting consecutive Dominance.
Under this system, flights would win if: a) Their users exalted more on average than their opponent and b) They receive more out-of-flight support at a 1:1 ratio than their opponent.
On Dominance funding with differing populations
Although some donations may come from non-Dominance participants, a significant percentage of a flight's funding will come from people who are interested in Dominance, so a smaller flight would not necessarily incur a large disadvantage from lower available funds. Remember: a small flight with a low amount of Dominance participation should receive more benefits from a smaller "active exalters over time", reducing the amount of funding needed.
On available lair space
In addition, the community has adopted the concept of "out-of-flight boarding", in which available lair spaces from non-participant flights can contribute to dragon storage; this allows smaller flights to expand their storage outside of their own lairs.
I believe this system would reward the efforts of all flights and would not harm smaller flights that have made good progress in their Dominance efforts. Making Dominance more balanced could benefit the site by encouraging more large battles that reduce the active dragon population.
Reasons why the current system is insufficient
Battle weariness was implemented to reduce the chances that a single flight will conquer consecutive weeks.
While the idea is sound in theory, there are a few issues in practice.
Flights do not attract the same amounts or types of players
Due to aesthetics, lore, or other factors such as the percentage of human population that would play FR and how they identify with a flight, there is a large skew between the most and least popular flights that we continue to observe over time.
As tracked in this guide, historically, flights like Wind, Shadow, and Arcane have been among the largest, while Earth and Fire have always been among the smallest. The absolute largest flight has changed slightly, and the mid-size flights may have shifted a little, but Earth and Fire have remained solidly smaller.
The appeal of a flight can be a factor in the types of players that choose to move there. This can cause an active Dominance population to be skewed:
A small flight could possibly attract a larger % of Dominance players to the extent that the small flight's exalting power is equal to a larger flight's exalting power even without a small-flight ratio adjustment. (While this is not necessarily true in Fire at the moment, it is currently true in Earth. I use Earth as an example, but Earth itself is not to blame; it just happens to be the flight that was primed for this situation due to several conditions.)
If a small flight and a large flight have the same exalting power at a 1:1 ratio, then if we assign 3x more Dominance points towards the small flight's exalts, the small flight would require a ~67% penalty from battle weariness before their exalting power equals the larger flight's exalting power. That would require between 6 to 7 weeks of consecutive Dominance. For a flight receiving 5x more Dominance points than its opponent from ratio, the weariness would need to stack to 80% (100 * (1 - 1/5)), which involves 8 weeks of consecutive Dominance. Even a smaller multiplier of 2x would require 50%, or 5 weeks of consecutive Dominance, which no flight has achieved up-to-date.
Smaller flights receive higher funneling benefits from the current "buy" culture
In the current day's battles, flights frequently acquire dragons from Raffles, Public Buys, and hiring Mercenary companies. This involves receiving dragons from non-participating flights.
In a situation where a small flight battles a large flight, the amount of external support received is heavily tilted in favor of the smaller flight. In the past, when Flight Rising was smaller, it was difficult for small flights to acquire enough volunteer work to organize and staff such efforts. However, there's a "sweet spot" that has been reached recently thanks to increasing Flight Rising population. Dominance teams and volunteers only need a certain size to be optimal, and after that quota has been reached, adding more volunteers does not add a significant advantage.
Currently, any flight has enough organizers and volunteers to benefit optimally from the receipt of out-of-flight support. With this disadvantage removed from smaller flights (which have less human resources), the current ratio system multiplies the Dominance points of smaller flights by a lot. If we compare recent out-of-flight raffle data to the values recorded in-flight, there have been cases where the out-of-flight support equalled or exceeded the amount exalted in-flight. (This makes sense, since there would be 9 non-participant flights in a battle between 2 flights.) The effect of OOF support is significant.
Drawbacks
It's possible that this system may place more of a focus on "high performers", discouraging the spirit of participation. Some flights may be able to react in a positive way by encouraging and guiding new participants, focusing as a community to rally OOF support, and directing their efforts to increase the flight's overall output together.
I don't think that filtering out people who exalted under X amount would solve the problem, and I personally do not support that implementation. Anyone on the "low" end of that threshold would feel like an unwelcome participant, and I think the potential of issues from any side would continue.
In a system involving a longer time period, hopefully users will adopt a more realistic attitude that some users will exalt for a living even if they do not participate heavily in Dominance. However, the risk of anti-casual-exalter sentiment exists and should be considered.
Summary
We should tweak the current Dominance ratio math to be based upon number of clans that exalted recently over 4-8 weeks instead of "number of clans that were active recently".
While I would prefer a much larger Dominance overhaul that introduces more engaging incentives to exalt, such a large change would be a long-term solution to the problem, which is not covered by this mid-term solution proposal. I believe that this suggestion would quickly help to reduce imbalance in the current Dominance scenario, making Dominance balance "good enough" before more significant changes are implemented in the future.
Instead of using a recent snapshot of the number of active clans, I suggest using a recent snapshot of the number of clans that have exalted dragons. To reduce funneling abuse, the snapshot should involve at least 4 weeks, probably more. Additionally, Irien made a great point that the exact number of weeks should be hidden, which would make funneling activities more difficult to plan.
Depending on the Devs' discretion, the recent snapshot period could be 4-8 weeks or perhaps a longer running average. The longer the period, the lesser the effects of "funneling" to a small amount of exalters. (The period probably shouldn't be too long, to reduce noise over time and database strain.)
I believe that this system would require more work to abuse than an "opt in" towards Dominance or a "number of active exalters during that week" solution. Taking a longer average snapshot can capture regular exalting activities and large battles alike. This would also effectively act as "battle weariness" for flights pushing for consecutive weeks, because the expected amount of participation during a battle is higher, resulting in a higher number of recent active exalting clans for flights attempting consecutive Dominance.
Under this system, flights would win if: a) Their users exalted more on average than their opponent and b) They receive more out-of-flight support at a 1:1 ratio than their opponent.
On Dominance funding with differing populations
Although some donations may come from non-Dominance participants, a significant percentage of a flight's funding will come from people who are interested in Dominance, so a smaller flight would not necessarily incur a large disadvantage from lower available funds. Remember: a small flight with a low amount of Dominance participation should receive more benefits from a smaller "active exalters over time", reducing the amount of funding needed.
On available lair space
In addition, the community has adopted the concept of "out-of-flight boarding", in which available lair spaces from non-participant flights can contribute to dragon storage; this allows smaller flights to expand their storage outside of their own lairs.
I believe this system would reward the efforts of all flights and would not harm smaller flights that have made good progress in their Dominance efforts. Making Dominance more balanced could benefit the site by encouraging more large battles that reduce the active dragon population.
Reasons why the current system is insufficient
Battle weariness was implemented to reduce the chances that a single flight will conquer consecutive weeks.
Quote:
If a Flight attains Dominance, Battle Weariness will kick in as the other Flights retaliate. While it will still be possible for that Flight to win in the next competition, it will be slightly harder than before. Exaltation credit will be reduced by 10% for the next tally, and will continue to stack for each consecutive win thereafter. We believe that this will help make Dominance exciting, versatile, and challenging.
While the idea is sound in theory, there are a few issues in practice.
Flights do not attract the same amounts or types of players
Due to aesthetics, lore, or other factors such as the percentage of human population that would play FR and how they identify with a flight, there is a large skew between the most and least popular flights that we continue to observe over time.
As tracked in this guide, historically, flights like Wind, Shadow, and Arcane have been among the largest, while Earth and Fire have always been among the smallest. The absolute largest flight has changed slightly, and the mid-size flights may have shifted a little, but Earth and Fire have remained solidly smaller.
The appeal of a flight can be a factor in the types of players that choose to move there. This can cause an active Dominance population to be skewed:
A small flight could possibly attract a larger % of Dominance players to the extent that the small flight's exalting power is equal to a larger flight's exalting power even without a small-flight ratio adjustment. (While this is not necessarily true in Fire at the moment, it is currently true in Earth. I use Earth as an example, but Earth itself is not to blame; it just happens to be the flight that was primed for this situation due to several conditions.)
If a small flight and a large flight have the same exalting power at a 1:1 ratio, then if we assign 3x more Dominance points towards the small flight's exalts, the small flight would require a ~67% penalty from battle weariness before their exalting power equals the larger flight's exalting power. That would require between 6 to 7 weeks of consecutive Dominance. For a flight receiving 5x more Dominance points than its opponent from ratio, the weariness would need to stack to 80% (100 * (1 - 1/5)), which involves 8 weeks of consecutive Dominance. Even a smaller multiplier of 2x would require 50%, or 5 weeks of consecutive Dominance, which no flight has achieved up-to-date.
Smaller flights receive higher funneling benefits from the current "buy" culture
In the current day's battles, flights frequently acquire dragons from Raffles, Public Buys, and hiring Mercenary companies. This involves receiving dragons from non-participating flights.
In a situation where a small flight battles a large flight, the amount of external support received is heavily tilted in favor of the smaller flight. In the past, when Flight Rising was smaller, it was difficult for small flights to acquire enough volunteer work to organize and staff such efforts. However, there's a "sweet spot" that has been reached recently thanks to increasing Flight Rising population. Dominance teams and volunteers only need a certain size to be optimal, and after that quota has been reached, adding more volunteers does not add a significant advantage.
Currently, any flight has enough organizers and volunteers to benefit optimally from the receipt of out-of-flight support. With this disadvantage removed from smaller flights (which have less human resources), the current ratio system multiplies the Dominance points of smaller flights by a lot. If we compare recent out-of-flight raffle data to the values recorded in-flight, there have been cases where the out-of-flight support equalled or exceeded the amount exalted in-flight. (This makes sense, since there would be 9 non-participant flights in a battle between 2 flights.) The effect of OOF support is significant.
Drawbacks
It's possible that this system may place more of a focus on "high performers", discouraging the spirit of participation. Some flights may be able to react in a positive way by encouraging and guiding new participants, focusing as a community to rally OOF support, and directing their efforts to increase the flight's overall output together.
I don't think that filtering out people who exalted under X amount would solve the problem, and I personally do not support that implementation. Anyone on the "low" end of that threshold would feel like an unwelcome participant, and I think the potential of issues from any side would continue.
In a system involving a longer time period, hopefully users will adopt a more realistic attitude that some users will exalt for a living even if they do not participate heavily in Dominance. However, the risk of anti-casual-exalter sentiment exists and should be considered.
Summary
We should tweak the current Dominance ratio math to be based upon number of clans that exalted recently over 4-8 weeks instead of "number of clans that were active recently".
While I would prefer a much larger Dominance overhaul that introduces more engaging incentives to exalt, such a large change would be a long-term solution to the problem, which is not covered by this mid-term solution proposal. I believe that this suggestion would quickly help to reduce imbalance in the current Dominance scenario, making Dominance balance "good enough" before more significant changes are implemented in the future.
