I do have some concerns on the recent additions to the reserve system, mainly due to the fact there was no public announcement on these changes on the forums or the discord (to my knowledge). Has Theos given any reasoning on why these changes were made? It seemed like the original way they were done before worked perfectly fine, only having one or two people vote on if someone should get reserves or not really doesn't make any sense to me. There's obviously always going to be some bias no matter how unbias someone thinks they are, it's just the way people are. Theos really needs to start explaining his reasonings on why he does things or doesn't do things, this guessing game is getting pretty old.
“Faction Leaders can only authorize reserves for Officers that served under them during their current term. The only exception is authorising the reserves of their predecessor.”
This change I can kind of understand, if no one knows what that officer/leader did back then or how they acted then you don't know for sure if they earned the reserves. It sucks, but it personally makes sense to me. Kind of annoying that reserves have been wiped over the years, I've lost my army reserves completely because of it even though I've sank a degenerate amount of time into the faction. However literally no one knows how I was back in 2018 or 2016, so people wouldn't be able to accurately judge if I am a good candidate to have 11A reserves or not.
“Staff no longer vote on Reserves.”
Genuinely don't understand the logic on this one. Like stated earlier, only letting 1-2 people vote on if someone should get reserves is BOUND to have some bias in the answer. It is insanely difficult for someone to keep an unbiased opinion, and no offense but I don't have enough trust in Theos' judgement to know he isn't going to be bias in the future. Honestly staff votes are also going to be biased probably, but at least there are more than just 2 people making the decision so it's less likely to affect the outcome. I honestly want this change to be reverted the most.
“Reserves are automatically revoked if the player is in, or joins, another Faction on the same side. (e.g. lose GB Reserves if you join Rangers)”
I have mixed feelings on this one, honestly. I think they changed it to be this way so it prevents people from dual factioning on a faction they have reserves on and their current main faction, which makes sense. However, this is the only reward players really get for dedicating so much time into a faction. To me it seems kind of fucked up to take it away if someone has sank so much time into a faction and they can't even enjoy playing on it once and a while if they decide to join another faction on the same side. If there were more "rewards" for resigning faction officers/leaders then I wouldn't really mind this change as much, but it really is the only thing people have to look forward too when they resign as thanks for them helping the faction so much.
Overall I'm kind of hesitant to side with anyone because we haven't heard anything from Theos or why he made these changes, these are just my first opinions looking at the changes. I'd love to hear why Theos made these changes though.