hard to establish a new crew

homeinvasion

My friend and I made the decision several months ago to start a new alliance rather than joining a top 100. We spent a large amount of HP (ergo money) to get the 20 roster slots, but we enjoy the game and didn't mind too much. We have this problem now where he and I are well into 3 star mode and everyone else is just starting the 3* transition, which is kind of to be expected. We do well but always finish just outside of top 100, and any covers, I don't really need the covers but I compete as hard as I can in all PVE to get everyone else in our crew something to start the climb to 3* land.

The problem we have, happened again this morning. Our only good non commander player has about 2 X 166 characters was upset about not getting top 100 again and left the alliance for a top 100. Which establishes the top 100 more, gets them more covers and keeps them in the spot. We spent a lot of money and at the end of the day we should have just joined someone else's top 100. I'm not moaning about not being able to buy top 100 spot I'm trying to find some reasonable way to help new players access the game. I would like a little more alliance control than make alliance public/ make alliance private/ kick player. That's it, 3 options and an awful chat log limited to 5 words, that puts newer words on top and you need to scroll down 5 times to get past the team up requests. I spent over a hundred bucks on this tinykitty alliance rubbish.

As is the model seems a lot like joining an established poker game, where you really need to buy in or all the sharks at the table just eat you up. Can anyone offer suggestions in player retention and helping newbs to transition to 3 star? At this stage my friend and I are seriously discussing whether to just dump the alliance and join an established crew. Which is awful for long term game sustainability.

FierceKiwi

That's a problem I've seen happen to many Top80-120 Alliances. The bottom teir slacks off a few events (or just disappear from the game) and the top teir bolts for greener pastures. You probably need to find 2-3 more 3* players willing to occasionally miss out on Top100 rewards for the greater good of helping 15-16 2* players progress. Also making semi-mandatory minimums in PvP (500-600 isn't unreasonable) could help.

russreid91

I would also suggest using another communication method such as LINE, and make it mandatory. It has made a huge difference for us as it allows us to communicate so much more effectively. Works on iOS, Android, Mac and PC.

Pulls people together more so that they feel like part of a team and hopefully you can encourage the lower level guys to push just a little more for that top 100 spot. Min of 500 per should be enough.

homeinvasion

We made the decision to go after PVE rewards as an alliance and leave the PVP to the individual, PVE seems to be the only reliable way to get covers, was this a bad decision? It certainly has been the last 3-4 weeks with 2 new highly wanted characters in & coming out. Should we switch to a random PVP game to go after?

Thanks for the Line suggestion, I will look to it.

FierceKiwi

It might work buty you'll typically get more chances with PvP since they run more often and it's a bit easy to see what kind of score you'll need for Top100.

BearVenger

I started off in alliances as a 2* player with no interest in transitioning to full-time 3*. However, after 5 seasons, I have one of everybody, including about fifteen 130+ characters, but only one in the 150s.

I bring that up to say that, because of bracketing and sharding, it seems that interest in playing and grinding, as well as having a broad playable roster, are better advantages to getting a high PvP/PvE score than having a small number of maxed-out characters. And in that vein, having a large number of players who consistently place decent scores is better than a few great players.

This game is set up in a way that challenges/penalizes (your pick) you for having a stronger roster. It seems the more I leveled my characters, the stronger my opposition.

For anyone making the 2*-3* move, I would make 4-6 maxed 2*s before trying to go all 3*. And at that point, build up yer 3* roster broadly, rather than race one guy to 166.

Beast1970

When we started our alliance, we had few people with 3* rosters. We started small, didn't get to 20 spots for a few weeks. Getting into the top 100 took time, and everyone in the alliance knew to be patient. I believe we went most of the first season with maybe one top 100 PVP finish towards the end. The 2* players gradually built their rosters, through individual effort and token draws, and were glad to get the extra ISO from being in an alliance. What this did for us was to build a core of loyal members that stuck around. We have replaced about 10 members, if memory serves, since season one. I think this is very low attrition. At the same time, those 2* players now have transitioned to 3* players, the alliance standings have moved up (we finished in 16th place last season), and when we do have someone leave, it is normally on great terms, usually due to real life issues, and it is easier to recruit people. All this took time, but has made a fun and loyal alliance that regularly finishes in the top 25 in PVP, normally around top 50 in PVE.

We focus more on PVP mainly because you get alliance rewards every 2.5 days. We target which PVEs to attack based on the covers offered. If most of your alliance consists of 2* players, I don't think you are entirely wrong in going after PVE rewards as scaling should be your friend. Obviously when a new character is released, the whole world will grind PVE, but other than those it should be easier to get covers which your alliance will still need, and many other alliances might pass. I do think you should go after PVP with an expectation of maybe not breaking top 100, but definitely hitting top 250. That will give everyone 1000 and 50 every 2.5 days in addition to personal rewards. Trust me, if any of your members say they have more ISO than they know what to do with, tell them to hold on to it, that problem will quickly disappear as you well know.

We had a few members leave at the beginning because we were just outside the top 100 mark. Don't let it bother you, work on the alliance dynamics, encourage your members. Celebrate their success, sympathize with their losses, and you will eventually move up together. I know it may sound trite, but it happens, just check the season rankings and you will see new alliances breaking in every season. They have to come from somewhere, so why not you?

homeinvasion

Cheers guys, I regularly say in alliance chat that it is only time before we are up there, thanks I think I just needed the encouragement.

Unknown

I empathize with you; I once started my own alliance as well and we did pretty decently in Season 1, finishing in the top 100. But everyone got burnt out in Season 2 and we ended up missing out lots of covers and a top 100 spot, and I bolted for greener pastures. It felt horrible, like abandoning your own baby! Till now, I still run a search for my old alliance every now and then to see how they're doing.

Like some others above said, consider setting an achievable minimum score for each PVP, say about 500-600 for each player, just to consistently get the top 100 alliance rewards. Convince your guys that if everyone puts in that little bit of effort together, the rewards for everyone will be great and everyone will begin to transition to 3* rosters much faster. Success breeds success after all.

Good luck out there, I hope things will swing up for you and your alliance soon!

mytisbrewin

There is some very good information in here. The only thing I would add is that to me recruiting is a key factor. Looking through the single player looking for an alliance thread and the vast majority are looking for a top 100 alliance. That is fair enough as we all like to win stuff, but there are some great players out there who don't insist on being in a top 100 alliance, but could soon grow into being good enough to hold their own in one. We set up a secondary more casual alliance looking for fun social players and four of those have ended up moving up to the main top 50/100 alliance full time. Just be as clear as you can in any correspondence with prospective members and you are more likely to find a good fit. If you get your recruitment right then retention is less of a problem. It is it's own competition at times to get the best players you can so keep at it.

Unknown

Also: set up a reasonable quota (450 points?) and be ruthless while reinforcing it. Demonstrate your crew you all need to pull together to stay top 100 - look at the score required, do the math, communicate... Highlight your progress from event to event. Also essential is to have a few teammates committed to the alliance and willing to work harder (do way better than the quota) to help the others. Good luck!

Unknown

This game's alliance has a model where as a player you should just lie about how awesome you are to get into an alliance that can get top 100 and then stay there as long until they figured out you're lying and get kicked out. Therefore to have an alliance that is successful you have to be aware of the nature of the player you're most likely getting. Why do you think all these big name alliances always have room for more people?

There's nothing clever a commander can do. If you're willing to keep on add a lot of liars and hope one of them turns out to be legit and you don't mind kicking out everyone who doesn't quite have enough points you may be able to do it. Otherwise it's a waste of time.