Here's an idea to gently discourage cabal bandwagon jumping

Theory:
A cabal has a finite amount of power available from it's item. The more members you have, the more thinnly the power is spread.

What happens:
Using member numbers as a measure, if a cabal is over-represented by some predetermined degree, spells/powers/skills may have shorter durations or be slightly less effective. This could be similar to the relationship between battle powers and the veil. The degree of nerf, like the current dodge/weight relationship, does not have to increase at a uniform rate.

When it occurs:
When the difference between avg. cabal size and a specific cabal size exceeds some threshold. This way, no adjustment for playerbase changes. This relates only to total cabal size, and for this suggestion is not effected by how many are online at a given time. This is not something that changes rapidly, but over time as cabal memberships wax and wane. It could be calculated once per reboot.

Intended outcome:
People will have an incentive to seek out less populated cabals at any given time, and are less likely to jump on a bandwagon. Those that cannot resist the bandwagon (or are the bandwagon), will have a slightly smaller advantage then they previously did.

Implementation:
You would need to avoid anything that changed leadership behavoir. The leader always has full power/duration for cabal powers/skills/spells. This way, there is no incentive for a leader to not induct new members. A new member would always strengthen the cabal as a whole. You would need to define 'active' members for the calculation to be fair to people actually playing their caballed char.

variations:
1) The nerf could only affect the most recent inductees (this would snare all the bandwagon jumpers), and the effects would lessen as you went up the chain of members from longest to shortest time in cabal. Lots of ways to do this.
2) You could buff powers of under represented cabals (one's that are not supposed to be that is).

Swings in cabals are just a part of human behavior. Here are some problems with this type of thinking:

1. Players are not equally skilled. You cannot assume that numbers alone are responsible for cabal strength.

2. I suspect, but cannot prove, that bandwagoning tends to accompany strong leaders (or a core group of players in the cabal.) Bandwagoning likely occurs AFTER a cabal is strong and toward the peak in cabal strength.

3. Leaders may just have an incentive to not induct under this system. What if you're a lower skill or new player? Under this system you might not get a look in as you would be bypassed for high skill players. In this sense this system is regressive.

4. When you state "average cabal size", what time period are we using? Data set back to 2006? One week ago? Two weeks? Depending on what your time frame is the average may be a biased predictor.

5. You assume that all cabal powers are coded to be fungible in terms of power. This may not be the case. Balance is not a purely linear thing, this is a complex multivariate problem.

6. Lots of code work required.

Honestly I really dislike the notion that top-down governance is a good method to force players to fit a mould. Players should be taking responsibility for bandwagoning with alts, or recognize that being the underdog, while high risk comes with immense reward too. (More respect and rewarding from players and Imms alike.) These sorts of fixes tend to look good on paper, but fail when they run head-first into human behavior in implementation. There are a bunch of unintended consequences which could occur from a system like this.

n/t

nt