All Alliances Increasing To 20 Member Slots

David [Hi-Fi] Moore

Greetings,

It's looking good that an additional feature will be going into the R64 patch (currently slated for Monday, November 3, 2014).

- Alliance sizes have been set to 20 for all new and current Alliances.

Here's word from IceIX:

"As many of you on the forums well know, Alliances are cool. They're a great way of meeting people, having fun with friends, and competing with other Alliances on the leaderboards. And the bigger the Alliance, the more that's the case. Conversely, the process to get to that bigger Alliance just isn't very fun. It costs a decent amount of Hero Points per slot when you get up there in members and the methods for paying is a bit odd (the common practice of slot trading).

Overall, we look at Alliances as something that everyone should be able to get involved in and want to encourage players to seek out like-minded players in the Alliance system.

To that end, we have decided that we're going to set all Alliances to the maximum of 20 slots. This means that any Alliance, newly-formed Public ones, or long time Private 'You must be this tall' Alliances are on the same playing field in regards to membership capabilities. Which of course, translates to increased social opportunities, Team-Up sharing, and competition for those high end rewards. Those loosely-formed public Alliances probably won't be able to take on the vaunted likes of the X-Men, Immortal Rage, 5DV and the like, but now those same Alliances will give players a feel for what an Alliance can really be like instead of being only a shadow of what a functional 20-person one can achieve."

Ducky

I assume no HP refunds.

Unknown

While this is an AWESOME update and I really mean AWESOME, anything to be said about the people that already paid the money for 20 slots in their alliance? I mean it's a lot of HP there and it suddenly is equaled to 0. The investment is completely devaluated.

Personally, I LOVE the change because I have not paid for an alliance and maybe now I can create my own competing one. But I can feel the unfairness of those that already spent a LOT to build 20 slots alliances and now they are just free.

Any thoughts on compensating the HP in some way?

Unknown

Surprise surprise...another move that favors the new players

CrookedKnight

Okin107 wrote:

While this is an AWESOME update and I really mean AWESOME, anything to be said about the people that already paid the money for 20 slots in their alliance? I mean it's a lot of HP there and it suddenly is equaled to 0. The investment is completely devaluated.

Personally, I LOVE the change because I have not paid for an alliance and maybe now I can create my own competing one. But I can feel the unfairness of those that already spent a LOT to build 20 slots alliances and now they are just free.

Any thoughts on compensating the HP in some way?

Basically this. It's a good change for gameplay but it also totally invalidates some very substantial investments people made into the game. Even if those people aren't actually any worse off today than they were yesterday, some kind of gesture is owed here.

Also, I think the competition for the 50th-100th alliance slots is going to get a lot more intense now.

Unknown

I spent quite a lot expanding an alliance back in the old days. Being part of alliances has repayed that debt and more in the time since. Though i do feel for the people who just expanded a new alliance last week and have not yet gotten to reap the rewards. Maybe refunds for alliances less than a few weeks old?

I am now imagining the powershift of people trying to fill all these suddenly maxed alliances. How many little alliances are going to combine and how many will cease to exist, how many will stay the course with their team of seven. Will the alliance forum explode with activity? How greatly is this going to affect the meta? how much does everyone love/hate that this is hitting mid season and may or may not affect lady thor rewards.

Unknown

Yeah, let's make this game even more cut throat/competitive. I'm sure that'll drum up some more sales!

Nellobee

Ow. There goes 6300 HP from me.

Unknown

Looks like the minimum score to enter the top 100 just rose.

The more competitive alliances, the more people who can vie for a top 100 slot.

Unknown

I wonder if the next step is to bracket alliances. Or is that too straightforward and would make too much sense?

Unknown

I feel cheated. Thats all.

TheHueyFreeman

Cryptobrancus wrote:

I wonder if the next step is to bracket alliances. Or is that too straightforward and would make too much sense?

Nah, the next step is to allow alliances to pay for slots 21-30

David [Hi-Fi] Moore

Hi,

We understand that players who spent Hero Points to expand their Alliance within the last week may be feeling upset. If you fall into this category, please send Customer Service a ticket and we'll look into Hero Point compensation: https://d3publisherofamerica.zendesk.co ... quests/new

We do feel though, that players who spent Hero Points in the past to expand their Alliances have reaped substantial benefits for doing so (increased Iso, covers, rewards, etc.) that compensate for the Hero Points spent to expand.

Thanks for your understanding as we move forward with the Alliance expansion.

Dayv

I think all alliances above five slots at the time of this announcement should receive something in the way of compensation. This is an investment of literally thousands of HP in the case of large alliances. Maybe not a full refund (except for very recent expansions), but at least toss us some tokens or something as our paid investment suddenly becomes commonplace.

Unknown

I joined my alliance at 7 people. We are at 20, and I'm r3esponsible for a cool half of it on the 'higher' end. I'd feel less slighted if it wasn't on a 'sliding scale' of HP, but I was paying 1500-2000HP. Being in an aaliance only repays that if its a top performing alliance, lets not kid ourselves, most of us AREN'T in those alliances, and this is going ot make it even harder.

So I understand the move, but I admit to feeling slighted.
- Unreall

esoxnepa

I know I expanded an Alliance from 5 to 10 expecting it to give some chance at competition, and it did almost nothing. So I left and found an active 20 person alliance. So we might as well enter tickets since it was suggested so our names are on the list if they choose to do some type of compensation.

Unknown

PEOPLE SHOULD NOT EXPECT REFUNDS FROM THIS.

Large alliances benefited this whole time from having larger alliances than others. That's what you paid for.

although, If you bought 15 slots in the last week, then I feel for you.

Dayv

SirKopath wrote:

PEOPLE SHOULD NOT EXPECT REFUNDS FROM THIS.

Large alliances benefited this whole time from having larger alliances than others. That's what you paid for.

How would you feel if they you had spent substantial effort maxing some characters and they removed character leveling, maxing everyone's characters out no matter how new or casual those players might be?

This is a significant change and it devalues our virtual goods.

Unknown

if this move was decided only to help the new players to have a better game experience and make new friends, no problem. But also is a unfair blow in the older, loyal userbase who spend tons and tons of money in this game and see newcomers get the same stuff free.

Its not fair, David.

Its not " you already get prizes for this too in the past and only achieved this x cover because your 20 guys alliance" - everything depends of your own and alliance efforts, i dont win top 100 of any tourney just entering the game welcome screen.

FaustianDeal

There is another way to potentially look at this - now that roster slots don't cost money any longer will they now make it easier to demote commanders? Prior to this a compelling argument could be made that, "hey his guy bought 2 slots so it should be harder to kick him out." That argument doesn't hold water any longer, so can we fire poor-performing commanders now, please.

Unknown

JBruno wrote:

Its not " you already get prizes for this too in the past and only achieved this x cover because your 20 guys alliance" - everything depends of your own and alliance efforts, i dont win top 100 of any tourney just entering the game welcome screen.

How will this change? Alliances that are coordinated will still dominate the top 100.