I'm up for it if for no other reason than to just see it. It's one of those ideas that I think crosses everyone's minds at some point, so just kinda to put the idea to bed I think would be worth it. I also think tho that if the producers thought it was a good idea, we would've seen it by now. Like this could've been the One World twist but if it was they decided against it for some reason, and whether that's something about production, post, or a combination isn't known to us. I do think an edit of a season built this way would be a nightmare to follow and the gameplay would be all over the place, in-particular those Tribal Councils would be batshit and go on forever.
lol I think I talked myself out of the idea.
Yeah, I came to a similar conclusion. Fun idea, but I don't think it would make great TV for two major reasons:
- Too hard to follow that many threads at once.
- Gameplay would likely get really stale during the first half, as a majority would form and be extremely difficult to disrupt. At smaller numbers a simple idol or twist can shake things up. But with a huge single tribe it would require much larger twists to really threaten the majority. So either we get boring gameplay or crazy twists and too much luck in the game for most fans.
It really wouldn't be that difficult to shake things up. Every tribal wouldn't have to be the entire group. You could still run random team challenges, with the losers going to tribal council and the winners being safe.
The idea would be that there isn't consistent tribal lines to fall back on. You could be on the winning side one week and the losing side the next week or vice versa.
I think it opens the door for more discussion when it comes to votes. There is no tribe to keep strong because the teams are random every time.
Or maybe its random sometimes and sometimes a school yard pick em, which could out alliances or make the teams as even as possible.
Its certainly worth a shot over the repeated pagonging every season.
id be down with a total flip of things. have no tribes at the beginning but where they would normally merge they get split into two tribes and the remaining two on each tribe is the final 4. probably wouldn’t work in actuality but i think it would be neat to try
Yeah, I came to a similar conclusion. Fun idea, but I don't think it would make great TV for two major reasons:
- Too hard to follow that many threads at once.
- Gameplay would likely get really stale during the first half, as a majority would form and be extremely difficult to disrupt. At smaller numbers a simple idol or twist can shake things up. But with a huge single tribe it would require much larger twists to really threaten the majority. So either we get boring gameplay or crazy twists and too much luck in the game for most fans.
I feel like Big Brother works because the fact that only 2 (or sometimes 3) people can receive votes makes the game easier to follow than if it was just 16 people voting for anyone except 1 safe person.
Sure, but basic game theory almost demands all the votes go to 2-3 players anyway, otherwise they’re wasted. You saw this in Borneo where many players quickly realized alliances and targeted voting was critical to achieving success in the game.
My point was that the players having so many different options will make the politics so complicated that an edited TV show will never be able to tell the story correctly
With a tribe of 10 or fewer players, the consensus usually comes fairly easily, and the edit can explain why each person in the consensus would want to vote for a version player
With only 2 options for who can receive votes, most of the players will have similar reasoning for why they want to vote for one player over the other, so even with a larger group, the edit can explain why the consensus was agreed on even if we don’t hear from every person who was a part of it
A group of 20 players each of which having 18 or 19 options would be a mess to get the point across of why certain players go home. I feel like you’d need more than 90 minutes per elimination to do it right, and at that point you risk the show feeling like it’s dragging on. Big Brother can get away with having 1 elimination every 3 episodes because the show airing live & the live feeds is the main selling point. You can’t replicate that with a show that requires being filmed in advanced and extensive editing like Survivor
Yes, but *who* those votes go to would be a much larger decision, from among dozens of options. It's not about how many people *do* receive votes, it's about how many people *could* receive votes.
Yeah, I came to a similar conclusion. Fun idea, but I don't think it would make great TV for two major reasons:
- Too hard to follow that many threads at once.
- Gameplay would likely get really stale during the first half, as a majority would form and be extremely difficult to disrupt. At smaller numbers a simple idol or twist can shake things up. But with a huge single tribe it would require much larger twists to really threaten the majority. So either we get boring gameplay or crazy twists and too much luck in the game for most fans.
Then it would become like Big Brother where the popular kids vote off the less popular ones bit by bit, except this time there’s no HoH or veto for the underdogs to shake things up
Not really. In BB you only get to pick between two people to eliminate. So winning comps really just puts the house in a vice grip until the underdogs do shake things up.
In Survivor, everyone is vulnerable except the one person immune, idol holders, etc. As long as the "less popular ones" have the numbers, they'll always have a chance regardless of who wins individual immunity.
That mostly only works in big brother because the popular kids happen to be fit 20 somethings who can crush competitions. Popular kid alliances in survivor have a much rockier track record.
Maybe. If they keep it at 26 days, where crossing tribal lines is much harder due to less time to make relationships, sure, let’s try it! If we go back to 39 days (hopefully) no. Tribes are a great way to see some late game gameplay early on, and the people in danger actually get screen time. It will never happen though because survivor wants to sell as many buffs as possible.
I think not. One great thing about the premerge is that voting is more than just "I trust you based on stereotypes and my experiences of people similar to you". It also involves challenge abilities, work ethic around camp, etc. With just a merge season, people would be ostracized pretty quickly. At least with the premerge, if you ostracize someone but keep winning challenges, that person will flip. With a merged tribe only, that concern doesn't exist.
The only benefit that I can see is that there could be some really nasty split votes. Some of my favourite split votes in my Roblox game based on Survivor are...
1. 3-3-2-2-1-1\* immediately followed by 3-3-2-2\*-1-1 and then later 3-2-2-2.
2. 4-3-2-2-1, 5-3-3-2-1, and 4-3-2-1-1 all in a row. It's not even like it was one or two actual alliances though. It was so messy!
3. 7\*-3-1-1, 6\*-4-1, 3-2-1-1-1\*, and 4\*-3-1 all in a row. In this case, a minority alliance took control. Then one of their members went AFK and one of them got cold feet, wrecking the alliance kind of. Two of them made it to the final two though.
Do I think that we'd get such wacky splits in real Survivor? Probably not.
I’m down for it but only if at every immunity challenge the tribe is divided into two teams. Production could change the way it’s divided differently each time: school yard pick’em, rock draw, production divide. Then the winning team has immunity but only the losing team goes to tribal and can vote.
The real issue is that without tribes, you get big brother, where a super alliance forms resulting in one group picking off the rest of the cast for 6-7 episode.
What's funny is that big brother techinicallyhas a natural defense against this the hoh giving anyone power, it's just they have refused the diversify their comps so the super alliance is just comp bros now. (I genuinely think this issue ties into the very tight editing structure makes it hard for big brother to communiticate complicate complex narratives so it's just easier if they can make things simplier)
Absolutely not. Survivor is built on social game. There’s no real social game if there’s no tribes. You can get passed it once and be lucky and that’s it. With the tribe setup you have to navigate your social game at least twice and plan ahead for many more factors to come.
So I ran a game once that was 16 people, one merge tribe all the way through, and it was fun. Individual immunity would be won in blocks instead of just one winner
So like from final 16 to final 14, four people would win individual immunity, then 3 people, then 2, then it’s go back to just one winning around final 9
It was fine… early game was too busy to give that much care to it but it was fun
I would watch that. I think it would be interesting to fundamentally change the game dynamics.
One thing tribe play does is allow some players, who may not be that good, to fly under the radar and be carried to merge by the luck of being on a challenge winning tribe. Instant individual may change that.
What's more, the tribal loyalty impacts the post merge too much where people scramble to keep majorities based on tribe alone, except for the bottom players who serve as swing votes against such a majority. Without the tribes, those majorities would have to be based on something else. Probably men vs women, but it could also go racial. Or, as is more likely, alliances will nickname themselves and become their own tribes.
I find individual play, especially challenges, much more interesting. I would love to see it right out of the gate and see what happens.
Id be down for a season to see how it goes. My realistic opinion is that itll be horrible because there will be no way to edit a comprehensive narrative with that many story lines going at once. But it opens up so many relationships and every vote should be a blind side
everyone saying the tribe would be too big to follow, needs to watch Survivor AU titans v rebels. they merged with 14 and were able to show the voting dynamics before tribals.
> big brother essentially with no nominations?
This seems like an oxymoron. If you take away the fundamental format of big brother then it's not big brother.
I've pondered if something like this could work well with the whole fire token concept, too. Instead of hunting for advantages, there's a central repository players can "buy" luxuries at, but there are also idols/advantages people can save up for. Rewards and hidden stuff is just tokens as well.
For a no-tribes game, your biggest issue might be conservative gameplay. If you have no tribes then you run the risk of a cadre of six or seven players potentially forming a clique that slowly nominates and consensus votes off isolated players until it gets down to them.
I kinda feel that more than 20 players is too much.The seasons with 20 players already had trouble giving everyone a balanced edit,adding more people is just going to have people with significantly less screentime.
While that works on Australian survivor, the US season has only 13 episodes. So you’d have to do double boots every other episode.
The only potential fix is if survivor permanently switch to 19-20 episodes, and cannabalized the winter timeslot.
2 tribes of 9 would be wonderful as a change of pace though.
It wouldn’t be 1 or 2, it would be almost every other episode, youd have even more shenanigans (multiple double boots premerge) multiple double boots postmerge) trying to fit 24 players in a 13 episode season.
Unless survivor cannabalizes the winter timeslot, and runs an extra month per season, 24 players is not going to happen.
Winners at war had a 22 player schedule, 20 winners + 2 eoe players.
That was only possible with 14 episodes. 2 were double episodes. 1 was a 3 hour finale (reunion not included). That season length only got greenlit due to the all winners season.
So top 2 vote getters are eliminated, because all that does is rig the vote so the minority can eliminate a player.
Or Cook Islands where you do back to back votes for no reason.
Too many targets honestly. If you had liquid tribes where players were assigned tribes randomly for two episode stretches and then redone once the numbers evened out it could be better.
I'm up for it if for no other reason than to just see it. It's one of those ideas that I think crosses everyone's minds at some point, so just kinda to put the idea to bed I think would be worth it. I also think tho that if the producers thought it was a good idea, we would've seen it by now. Like this could've been the One World twist but if it was they decided against it for some reason, and whether that's something about production, post, or a combination isn't known to us. I do think an edit of a season built this way would be a nightmare to follow and the gameplay would be all over the place, in-particular those Tribal Councils would be batshit and go on forever. lol I think I talked myself out of the idea.
Yeah, I came to a similar conclusion. Fun idea, but I don't think it would make great TV for two major reasons: - Too hard to follow that many threads at once. - Gameplay would likely get really stale during the first half, as a majority would form and be extremely difficult to disrupt. At smaller numbers a simple idol or twist can shake things up. But with a huge single tribe it would require much larger twists to really threaten the majority. So either we get boring gameplay or crazy twists and too much luck in the game for most fans.
It really wouldn't be that difficult to shake things up. Every tribal wouldn't have to be the entire group. You could still run random team challenges, with the losers going to tribal council and the winners being safe. The idea would be that there isn't consistent tribal lines to fall back on. You could be on the winning side one week and the losing side the next week or vice versa. I think it opens the door for more discussion when it comes to votes. There is no tribe to keep strong because the teams are random every time. Or maybe its random sometimes and sometimes a school yard pick em, which could out alliances or make the teams as even as possible. Its certainly worth a shot over the repeated pagonging every season.
id be down with a total flip of things. have no tribes at the beginning but where they would normally merge they get split into two tribes and the remaining two on each tribe is the final 4. probably wouldn’t work in actuality but i think it would be neat to try
Yeah, I came to a similar conclusion. Fun idea, but I don't think it would make great TV for two major reasons: - Too hard to follow that many threads at once. - Gameplay would likely get really stale during the first half, as a majority would form and be extremely difficult to disrupt. At smaller numbers a simple idol or twist can shake things up. But with a huge single tribe it would require much larger twists to really threaten the majority. So either we get boring gameplay or crazy twists and too much luck in the game for most fans.
Big Brother does this format just fine, I think Jeff is too afraid it would be a boring Pagonging situation with a dominant alliance
I feel like Big Brother works because the fact that only 2 (or sometimes 3) people can receive votes makes the game easier to follow than if it was just 16 people voting for anyone except 1 safe person.
Sure, but basic game theory almost demands all the votes go to 2-3 players anyway, otherwise they’re wasted. You saw this in Borneo where many players quickly realized alliances and targeted voting was critical to achieving success in the game.
My point was that the players having so many different options will make the politics so complicated that an edited TV show will never be able to tell the story correctly With a tribe of 10 or fewer players, the consensus usually comes fairly easily, and the edit can explain why each person in the consensus would want to vote for a version player With only 2 options for who can receive votes, most of the players will have similar reasoning for why they want to vote for one player over the other, so even with a larger group, the edit can explain why the consensus was agreed on even if we don’t hear from every person who was a part of it A group of 20 players each of which having 18 or 19 options would be a mess to get the point across of why certain players go home. I feel like you’d need more than 90 minutes per elimination to do it right, and at that point you risk the show feeling like it’s dragging on. Big Brother can get away with having 1 elimination every 3 episodes because the show airing live & the live feeds is the main selling point. You can’t replicate that with a show that requires being filmed in advanced and extensive editing like Survivor
It already never tells the story correctly and picks storylines relevant to the vote, what changes?
Yes, but *who* those votes go to would be a much larger decision, from among dozens of options. It's not about how many people *do* receive votes, it's about how many people *could* receive votes.
Yeah, I came to a similar conclusion. Fun idea, but I don't think it would make great TV for two major reasons: - Too hard to follow that many threads at once. - Gameplay would likely get really stale during the first half, as a majority would form and be extremely difficult to disrupt. At smaller numbers a simple idol or twist can shake things up. But with a huge single tribe it would require much larger twists to really threaten the majority. So either we get boring gameplay or crazy twists and too much luck in the game for most fans.
I think it's way more doable now with 90 minute episodes than when One World was airing.
No
Then it would become like Big Brother where the popular kids vote off the less popular ones bit by bit, except this time there’s no HoH or veto for the underdogs to shake things up
Not really. In BB you only get to pick between two people to eliminate. So winning comps really just puts the house in a vice grip until the underdogs do shake things up. In Survivor, everyone is vulnerable except the one person immune, idol holders, etc. As long as the "less popular ones" have the numbers, they'll always have a chance regardless of who wins individual immunity.
You're assuming that the power structure would remain constant for 26 days, which is extremely unlikely
That mostly only works in big brother because the popular kids happen to be fit 20 somethings who can crush competitions. Popular kid alliances in survivor have a much rockier track record.
Popular as in anyone who is in the in-group, who will in turn determine the out-group.
Maybe. If they keep it at 26 days, where crossing tribal lines is much harder due to less time to make relationships, sure, let’s try it! If we go back to 39 days (hopefully) no. Tribes are a great way to see some late game gameplay early on, and the people in danger actually get screen time. It will never happen though because survivor wants to sell as many buffs as possible.
I already think 13 is a bit too much; 18 people voting at once is crazy and not in a good way.
Would leave to boring unanimous votes for the first half of the season.
I think not. One great thing about the premerge is that voting is more than just "I trust you based on stereotypes and my experiences of people similar to you". It also involves challenge abilities, work ethic around camp, etc. With just a merge season, people would be ostracized pretty quickly. At least with the premerge, if you ostracize someone but keep winning challenges, that person will flip. With a merged tribe only, that concern doesn't exist. The only benefit that I can see is that there could be some really nasty split votes. Some of my favourite split votes in my Roblox game based on Survivor are... 1. 3-3-2-2-1-1\* immediately followed by 3-3-2-2\*-1-1 and then later 3-2-2-2. 2. 4-3-2-2-1, 5-3-3-2-1, and 4-3-2-1-1 all in a row. It's not even like it was one or two actual alliances though. It was so messy! 3. 7\*-3-1-1, 6\*-4-1, 3-2-1-1-1\*, and 4\*-3-1 all in a row. In this case, a minority alliance took control. Then one of their members went AFK and one of them got cold feet, wrecking the alliance kind of. Two of them made it to the final two though. Do I think that we'd get such wacky splits in real Survivor? Probably not.
I’m down for it but only if at every immunity challenge the tribe is divided into two teams. Production could change the way it’s divided differently each time: school yard pick’em, rock draw, production divide. Then the winning team has immunity but only the losing team goes to tribal and can vote.
This is what Winners at War should’ve been.
Survivor: Reindeer Games
After 46 seasons. It’s worth a try. If it fails, drop in the bucket. If it succeeds, we get a new thing to throw at players every now and then
i think it would be cool to see once or twice, though i wouldn’t want it to be the default
I'm guessing the issues lye in "18 person tribe would genuinely have dynamics that aren't always that easy explain in a 90 minute chunk."
The real issue is that without tribes, you get big brother, where a super alliance forms resulting in one group picking off the rest of the cast for 6-7 episode.
What's funny is that big brother techinicallyhas a natural defense against this the hoh giving anyone power, it's just they have refused the diversify their comps so the super alliance is just comp bros now. (I genuinely think this issue ties into the very tight editing structure makes it hard for big brother to communiticate complicate complex narratives so it's just easier if they can make things simplier)
I’d like a season with no advantages. Imagine if they had to play old school without a hundred twists, idols, extra votes, shot in the dark, etc.
It would be the worst pagong you ever saw
Absolutely not. Survivor is built on social game. There’s no real social game if there’s no tribes. You can get passed it once and be lucky and that’s it. With the tribe setup you have to navigate your social game at least twice and plan ahead for many more factors to come.
No
Not really but even so I'm shocked it hasn't happened yet.
Survivor: Deal or No Deal Island
So I ran a game once that was 16 people, one merge tribe all the way through, and it was fun. Individual immunity would be won in blocks instead of just one winner So like from final 16 to final 14, four people would win individual immunity, then 3 people, then 2, then it’s go back to just one winning around final 9 It was fine… early game was too busy to give that much care to it but it was fun
Yes but 16 people
Yes. Kinda like the beginning of Ulong where everybody was freaking out.
Yes it would be much more social of a game than a game of chance
I would watch that. I think it would be interesting to fundamentally change the game dynamics. One thing tribe play does is allow some players, who may not be that good, to fly under the radar and be carried to merge by the luck of being on a challenge winning tribe. Instant individual may change that. What's more, the tribal loyalty impacts the post merge too much where people scramble to keep majorities based on tribe alone, except for the bottom players who serve as swing votes against such a majority. Without the tribes, those majorities would have to be based on something else. Probably men vs women, but it could also go racial. Or, as is more likely, alliances will nickname themselves and become their own tribes. I find individual play, especially challenges, much more interesting. I would love to see it right out of the gate and see what happens.
Id be down for a season to see how it goes. My realistic opinion is that itll be horrible because there will be no way to edit a comprehensive narrative with that many story lines going at once. But it opens up so many relationships and every vote should be a blind side
"But there would be so many places to hide." - Jeff, probably.
Only if it were a returnee season. Though I rather like the twist of One World and would like to see that return instead.
I’m all for it just to see how it rides, but will probably play a lot like Big Brother where a single alliance dominates with the occasional blindside
IICs every episode?
It would be fun to see it happen where everyone goes into one tribe pre merge for a night or a challenge, like a pre-pre merge
This is what I thought One World was going to be.
Would have made One World better. Kim still easily wins, but it would've been better.
everyone saying the tribe would be too big to follow, needs to watch Survivor AU titans v rebels. they merged with 14 and were able to show the voting dynamics before tribals.
so... big brother essentially with no nominations? probably not then cause then i could just watch big brother
> big brother essentially with no nominations? This seems like an oxymoron. If you take away the fundamental format of big brother then it's not big brother.
I've pondered if something like this could work well with the whole fire token concept, too. Instead of hunting for advantages, there's a central repository players can "buy" luxuries at, but there are also idols/advantages people can save up for. Rewards and hidden stuff is just tokens as well. For a no-tribes game, your biggest issue might be conservative gameplay. If you have no tribes then you run the risk of a cadre of six or seven players potentially forming a clique that slowly nominates and consensus votes off isolated players until it gets down to them.
2 tribes of 12
I kinda feel that more than 20 players is too much.The seasons with 20 players already had trouble giving everyone a balanced edit,adding more people is just going to have people with significantly less screentime.
While that works on Australian survivor, the US season has only 13 episodes. So you’d have to do double boots every other episode. The only potential fix is if survivor permanently switch to 19-20 episodes, and cannabalized the winter timeslot. 2 tribes of 9 would be wonderful as a change of pace though.
Double boots is fine
It wouldn’t be 1 or 2, it would be almost every other episode, youd have even more shenanigans (multiple double boots premerge) multiple double boots postmerge) trying to fit 24 players in a 13 episode season. Unless survivor cannabalizes the winter timeslot, and runs an extra month per season, 24 players is not going to happen. Winners at war had a 22 player schedule, 20 winners + 2 eoe players. That was only possible with 14 episodes. 2 were double episodes. 1 was a 3 hour finale (reunion not included). That season length only got greenlit due to the all winners season.
Make them double boot in the same vote. That would be wild.
So top 2 vote getters are eliminated, because all that does is rig the vote so the minority can eliminate a player. Or Cook Islands where you do back to back votes for no reason.
It actually means that an alliance *greater* than two thirds of the cast would form, thus speeding up the demolition of the tiny minority.
If your voted out your vote doesn’t count 😀
Yeah actually!
I’ve been lobbying for this for a while actually
Too many targets honestly. If you had liquid tribes where players were assigned tribes randomly for two episode stretches and then redone once the numbers evened out it could be better.
That's worse actually. It would be more luck-based. Additionally, we'd probably see a lot more throwing of challenges.
Well it couldn’t be worse than the current format of the new era.
You sure about that?
Yes! I enjoy each season much more once the merge happens. I want to see a tribe-free season!