All Alliances Increasing To 20 Member Slots

IamTheDanger

atomzed wrote:

simonsez wrote:

atomzed wrote:

Umm, you really think that just giving every alliance 20 slots will make them T100 worthy?

I highly doubt it.

I think the crux of the issue is the perception of "lost investment" (however much I disagree with this concept for a game).

No, they will not automatically become T100.

But, how many of the heavy hitters that make my alliance what it is, will leave to start their own team? Which means I will then have to find strong replacements. A lot more time and effort on the part of commanders that will then have spend hours to do something they have already done.

As an avid practical joker, I will say that if this is a Halloween prank from D3, it's a darn good one. If not, ....

Pwuz_

atomzed wrote:

[Cough cough... f2p has never been just about playing the game for free.

In all F2P games, you are free to play the game but some aspects of the game are locked behind the pay-wall...

Erm, I realize you may be just asking a rhetorical question... So I shouldn't go on.

NO!!!

That is NOT how GOOD F2P games are designed. Any F2P game worth playing should be able to be played without spending ANY real money. Real money should make the game more enjoyable, but should NEVER be a requirement.

That's one of the best parts about MPQ is the fact that they have balanced F2P very well. There is NO pay wall, if you play enough, you can achieve everything that a whale can, it just takes longer and more effort on your part.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mhz9OXy86a0&list=PLhyKYa0YJ_5BF-cMaj6gIe-7uD5rZG9ur

Unknown

cool, can't wait

atomzed

Pwuz_ wrote:

atomzed wrote:

[Cough cough... f2p has never been just about playing the game for free.

In all F2P games, you are free to play the game but some aspects of the game are locked behind the pay-wall...

Erm, I realize you may be just asking a rhetorical question... So I shouldn't go on.

NO!!!

That is NOT how GOOD F2P games are designed. Any F2P game worth playing should be able to be played without spending ANY real money. Real money should make the game more enjoyable, but should NEVER be a requirement.

That's one of the best parts about MPQ is the fact that they have balanced F2P very well. There is NO pay wall, if you play enough, you can achieve everything that a whale can, it just takes longer and more effort on your part.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mhz9OXy86a0&list=PLhyKYa0YJ_5BF-cMaj6gIe-7uD5rZG9ur

In my opinion, in mpq, given time and effort, you can reach the "promised land". It is a *good* example of how f2p game is like.

But if you have been reading the forums, this is not the prevailing sentiment. So when I replied to arktos I replying to him based on what I understand about his perspective.

There are generally 2 groups of opinions.

1) The paying veterans who are unhappy when changes are made to help the other population. Mainly bec they feel that since they are paying they should get a distinct advantage.

2) 2* to 3* players who are complaining how d3 is squeezing them and that all changes are out to screw them (and to get them to buy health packs).

How to please both groups? It seems that the only way is to maintain status quo. Which is bad for the game in the long run.

Unknown

They should just give an advantage that can be get in others ways, like it was the case before.

As I said earlier, if they put the minimum to 20 members and the maximum to 30 members, and give the veterans who paid like 5 more slots in their ally and a price of like 300-400 HP by slot, it's fair enough, and everyone will, I think, be happier than with the actual project which gives them... just... nothing !
This way, no personal compensation to give, but a global compensation which is much more easier to do and much more fair too.

Pwuz_

I had an interesting idea.

Make the purchased Alliance slots bonuses. I know that doesn't make any sense, but bare with me.

New Alliance of 20 members, for X amount of HP, a commander can upgrade a single slot into a bonus slot. On the daily reward, if this player played that day, they dish out bonus Iso! So if you upgrade to have a single Bonus Slot, and all 20 members play, 19 players all provide 10 Iso at the Daily Reward, but the upgraded player provides 20 Iso. This can be upgraded to a maximum of all 20 members, thus paying out 400 Iso per day rather than 200.

Now, for all old Alliances formed prior to the update, we automatically get as many Bonus Slots as we had unlocked previously! So a 20 man alliance automatically is fully upgraded and dishes out double Iso to all members at the Daily Reward.

This would be easy to implement (I think), and offer a clear benefit to those of us who spent our hard earned HP to upgrade our Alliances. It would even incentivize players to upgrade their Alliances beyond what they currently have. Why can't we upgrade our alliances even further to triple or even quadruple Iso pay outs? There should be a limit of course, but I think we can all agree that once you are into 3* territory, Iso becomes a valuable commodity and any extra source of it is very welcome.

Nellobee

Any alliance that was under 20 slots should get a full refund.
Any alliance of 20 slots more than a couple months old should not, as they most likely got their reward.

At least, that is my two-penny opinion.

Unknown

My wife and I run a 15 member alliance, and we're definitely not happy.

We created our alliance in September and have been gradually adding alliance slots a few a week...just to see this... Makes us feel like real dupes now...

The sad thing about it is that Alliance leaders are probably the most dedicated players in the game. They actively support the game with their money, create alliances, organize players to achieve purpose and accomplishment. And in the end, it seems, we're just given the one finger salute and abandoned like chumps for our dedication and monetary support.

As for my wife and I, if it ends up that our investment in buying alliance slots has just been throwing money away meaninglessly, we'll definitely not be spending another dime on this game that just abandons its supporters like this.

We were going to buy another $100 HP Package for each other for Christmas. As it stands now, that money will be going to another F2P game in which monetary support is actually appreciated and rewarded.

Moon Roach

Nellobee wrote:

Any alliance that was under 20 slots should get a full refund.
Any alliance of 20 slots more than a couple months old should not, as they most likely got their reward.

At least, that is my two-penny opinion.

As a return on investment, if you're not top 100 (and 30000+ alliances (*) aren't) it's pretty poor.

(*) I have no idea how many alliances have 20 slots, but a quick look at the alliances from 886 to 895 in Season VII (Roaches are 891) show 7 with 20, 2 with 14 and 1 with 10.

Unknown

atomzed wrote:

How to please both groups? It seems that the only way is to maintain status quo. Which is bad for the game in the long run.

Or offer some kind of compensation, which does not cost ANYTHING to the company and does not potentially diminish their future income, just because the amount of HP and Iso needed to max a roster (if that was the ultimate goal to be reached) is UNLIMITED.

Do you get my point ?

You can make any change you want to the game. You just have to communicate better, compensate when necessary and show some consideration to the ones who feed you.

That's the basics of respect ?

atomzed

arktos1971 wrote:

atomzed wrote:

How to please both groups? It seems that the only way is to maintain status quo. Which is bad for the game in the long run.

Or offer some kind of compensation, which does not cost ANYTHING to the company and does not potentially diminish their future income, just because the amount of HP and Iso needed to max a roster (if that was the ultimate goal to be reached) is UNLIMITED.

Do you get my point ?

You can make any change you want to the game. You just have to communicate better, compensate when necessary and show some consideration to the ones who feed you.

That's the basics of respect ?

Umm, when I have disrespected you? Chill.

Unknown

You = D3P not atomzed

Vohnkar

It would be nice if paying for the slots was worth something. I spent a lot of HPs making my alliance 20 slots, i paid for every slot with the help of a friend and we didn't make people pay their slot. We are a semicasual alliance that never ended top 100 on any season, we were top 250 for a long time and eventually some people got inactive and we fell to top 1000. So I don't have any fury reward event, and I can only dream about the new lady thor. (my only fury cover was from a token).

I like that D3 makes free a 20 slots alliance for everyone, but don't make our investment useless please. One possible thing would be that alliances already at 20 could be of 40 people, but only the 20 with the most points would add points in events. This way alliance that already payed for their roster can at least get the "advantege" of having some causal/inactive players in the alliance. Keep in mind that making an alliance from 5 to 20 slots costs a lot of money.

Well dreaming is free (for now), I don't mind paying for some things and support the game, but seeing measures like this are disheartening, not every 20 slot alliance can compete for the top100, I can asure mine can't, I've been playing with RL friends that were really casual, and even now that some of them left the game I have a couple of low ranking players that I can't/won't kick because they are RL friends or long term players in the alliance.


Please D3 rethink the system so everybody can be happy with this change.

Unknown

Im not one to complain. The true healing change I was ok with. It just took some getting used to. But now I feel I am getting the shaft. I have spent many HPs growing the alliance I joined from 5 to 18.I did not purchase all the slots but most. But this alliance never is anywhere close to finishing in the top to reap good rewards. We finish anywhere from 300 to 600. Getting a cover from the alliance side is simply a pipe dream.

As a business owner myself I find it a very poor job of customer service to not somehow compensate those who put in the effort and own personal dollars and now have those advatages stripped away. Telling me I reaped some major advantage by having a larger alliance is wrong. I didnt get any of those great covers.

If MPQ is serious about putting out a good product AND taking care of the current consumers they would find a way to gift the purchasers of alliance spots something. It could be in the form of HPs or rare covers or something so that their current consumers dont feel **** and cheated.

From one business owner to another its a tricky slope once you start taking advantage of your customers good will. I would hope they are smart enough to realize that.

BL

GuntherBlobel

I'm not going to pretend that I've read any of this thread so forgive me if this has been said before. Personally, I don't think this will change much, but of course, I never spent money on Alliance slots. I might feel differently if I had, at least, emotionally.

This issue is so simple to solve, that my head is reeling to see that there is any controversy at all. D3, just give some HP (or tokens or a single Blade cover) to every player that purchased a slot or more. They just want something of virtual value for their money.

Your players believe that they are "investing" in this virtual world and that it has some real value. You know better, but for tinykitty's sake, play the silly game.

You are the Treasury, you print the money and control it's value. Just give people a penny and call it a dollar! Why do I have to tell you have to tell you how to be better at F2P deception? In many ways, you are the masters.

After all these teachable moments, I want to know, who is it that isn't learning from them? Is it your CEO? Or is it someone you can fire? Because despite your really good efforts of late, silly controversies like this reinforce MPQ's long-standing reputation of bait and switch. Someone on you team is undermining the efforts made by the others.

SunCrusher

This is going to be a long post because I went to sleep thinking about this before writing it so please bear with me if you want to read. Also, I'm on pain meds and on my iPod Touch; please excuse some rambling and random typos and thanks for reading.

I am one of the original non-Alliance/pro-solo fans who was around these forums when Alliances were first announced. Additionally, I am still pro-solo (or in my case, 3 people including myself but we all know each other IRL) and as such, free Alliances for everyone is REALLY going to kick my Alliance down even further into the bottomless pit because I don't intend to expand to keep up. I also don't personally see this move as any way beneficial to myself for this reason.

As such, one would think that I really wouldn't like this idea, but if I had to be completely honest, even if I don't like it, I can see some possible rationales.

That said, I would like to share an MPQ-history-related 2 HP opinion and a bit of speculation from a relatively uninvolved and uninterested point of view.

Being around the forums during the time Alliances were first announced, I distinctly recall that there was talk of possibly re-evaluating Alliances depending on how things went and one of the topics that came up constantly during that time of discussion was the price of Alliance expansion and how cost-prohibitive and possibly unrewarding it would be for those who were less than top-tier competitive.

Firstly, you had to have the HP and/or money. Given that back in those days, LRs and PvP were definitely still 'for the big players only', earning HP through rewards was more difficult if you weren't hardcore and one of the concerns that obviously came up was that the game would become even more P2W with the advent of Alliances.

Secondly, you had to be good enough to be able to rank well to begin with for the Alliance to pay off if you were looking at Alliances in a cost-benefit type of analysis.

With those two primary concerns floating around at the time, even some of the paying top-tier players voiced concern of the prohibitive and even risky nature of the Alliance roster slots and there was also concern about Alliances making things less fun re: cost of new slot versus payout in the end and Commanders shouldering the full burden and how to mitigate it without creating more problems.

Obviously for the people whose primary goal was to socialize and for those who did not see the cost of Alliances as cost-prohibitive, these sorts of concern were not as strong.

The end consensus, regardless, boiled down to a, "Well, we'll see how this goes," from both the player and developer end of things.

Fast forward to now and this is what has happened:

+ Though there was a lot of concern about cost prohibitiveness during the beginning, apparently it wasn't enough to stop people from buying into full-rostered Alliances anyways and multiple ones at that. There are some Alliances that show this pretty clearly just by virtue of how many full-bodied Alliances the Alliance encapsulates.

+ Most of the good players all conglomerated together at the very beginning *waves at a bunch of people* and by virtue of how Alliances work re: rewards systems, these players who grouped together - especially in the early times - mostly all got stronger together.

+ The people who did not have this benefit, however, started falling further behind as the 'small rewards' from Alliances started adding more and more distance between strongly Allianced players (in those days, that meant big and well known) and those who were not.

+ A freemium model is already, in its own way, P2W, unless the paying person is not seeking to win or unless the person has zero idea on what they're doing.

+ After Alliances came into the picture, it became even more P2W save for the older veterans who had the benefit of having started early and having played with advantaged pre-nerfed characters and being able to do LRs when the LRs still offered covers etc.

= Basically, what this 'formula' ultimately adds up to is the fact that the top Alliances and their members ended up severely dominating/are dominating the top rewards while the distance between them and everyone else grew and kept growing.

I don't think that I would be wrong to say that one of (not THE but one of) the primary priorities in the top Alliances is and has been competition. Additionally, and - perhaps more importantly, it has been worth it - for the sake of being and staying competitive - for people to spend, spend, spend on Alliances despite initial concerns and complaints about pricing.

How many times do we hear someone say, "I hate XYZ Event but I'm doing it for my Alliance!" Or, "I'm back from vacation! Let me back in!" Or "I got booted from my Alliance!" How many times have people quit their Alliances because the demands were too much?

Or, as someone has pointed out, the potential worth of a new Alliance slot is and has been tantalizing enough that people are willing to sell off good characters to open the slot.

Competition, clearly, is and has been important and just as clearly, though people have grumbled about the cost, they still bought into it because clearly, there is a benefit that makes the risk worth taking.

If it isn't or wasn't worth it, then why buy into it and not only that, keep buying into it? The fact that the big top Alliances kept/keep growing is proof that clearly, something is and has been worth it despite the cost and that 'something' in most cases is competitive advantage.

There's nothing wrong with competitive advantage, but I think there's basis to suggest the possibility that in the grand scheme of things, it has gone a bit extreme in the sense that the more competitive the top Alliances get, the less there is for the more casual players to the point where non-super competitive people would be completely turned off by this game and experience.

As a soloist, I knew that I would be looking for the long haul in terms of seeing measurable roster progress; it comes with the territory of not reaping the top 100 or even top 500 Alliance rewards along with my own personal rewards.

Like others have mentioned, it has become almost a necessity to be in a strong Alliance that can place well so as to GROW rosters within any 'reasonable' time with 'reasonable' being a very subjective word.

I'm 6 months deep into transition and still slogging through and for me, this likely is a 'reasonable' pace and I can accept it and part of the reason I can accept it is because collecting is my priority as opposed to competition and as I've recently discovered, the collector in me kind of likes Transition Land because Tokens are still exciting!

But, if the forums are any indication whatsoever, 6 months plus is too long of a time and especially with how fast-paced this game has become with all the new characters being released in back to back events, people who are even remotely competitive feel the urge to hurry and catch up or, at the least, be competitive.

Being competitive in MPQ partly means being in a good strong Alliance but if all the 'good' ones are full, then that means possibly starting a new one and that equates to high HP/monetary risk for questionable gain if you're not a top player or already in a top Alliance.

If you're already at the top level, earning/farming HP to some extent is possible if you know how or are able to; there are several people who have managed to accumulate a bunch of HP without having to buy any of it.

But that's if you're strong (or lucky in some cases) and have the capacity to pull it off.

For those who are not at that level, the only other option is to buy all of the HP needed to start a big competitive Alliance and this is likely how the cost-prohibitiveness shows itself the clearest and most visibly.

For the people who - in terms of risk analysis - have the most to lose (money) and the least to gain (newer to the game, not so strong Alliance, not so strong personal roster, unlikely to get higher rewards anyways), forming an Alliance is not just costly but also very risky if you're not in it solely for fun and games and who cares about ranking.

Likely, this has contributed to what looks like a high contrast picture of too-conservative Alliance-forming by not so seasoned players and a very-aggressive Alliance forming by the top players and the end result of that is, once again, the further widening of the gap between the haves and the have-nots.

Coincidentally, this was one of the bigger concerns that was first voiced when Alliances were first announced which the developers tried to reassure wouldn't happen...

Which likely brings us to where we are now - an attempt to help encourage socializing and competition -across- the board and not just amongst those in the top.

Though we - me included! - sometimes gripe about newbies getting it easy, I would wager that a lot of newer players are actually getting more easily discouraged than before and partly because of how predominant, "You need to be in a top Alliance if you want to get the good rewards!" is coupled with the fact that all the 'good' Alliances are full or have certain criteria that need to be met.

For the longevity of MPQ, we want to encourage players to love the game and find reason to stay and invest - not just their time but also their money - and discouraged and intimidated players don't really fit that bill.

All that said, despite my lack of involvement in Alliance-related things, I can see why people who have heavily invested into their Alliances would be upset - especially those who haven't seen the 'returns' yet.

When I buy something, at least to a degree, there is a level of expectation attached to it and to me, that expectation isn't quite the same as entitlement.

It's more about the general principle of things and about Good Faith and some kind of stability - that I bought something or bought into something feeling confident and reassured that the rug wouldn't get suddenly yanked out from underneath me at a moment's notice.

This change with the Alliances to me is not entirely unexpected re: history, but its suddenness of presentation is frankly shocking given how much HP/money has gone into the Alliance system.

People bought into Alliances for a few different reasons and competitive advantage was one of them and where I do believe that many Alliances got significant 'worth' out of their investments as a consequence of competitive advantage, I don't think that should necessarily disqualify them from being eligible for at least some kind of "Thank you for supporting us during this time period," goodwill gesture.

Exactly what the goodwill gesture could be I really have no idea I must admit, but the fact of the matter is, a lot of these people have supported MPQ for quite some time and to suddenly not just heavily discount a pre-dominantly paid/HP feature but to make it absolutely free just doesn't look or sit right after such heavy investment requirements prior.

There's always the argument of times change and so do deals/sales/features offered and such and if you got the worst deal, then oh well.

There's also the argument about worth and how HP is consumable and therefore a 'use as you go' sort of thing.

I agree with both of those thoughts as I for the most part believe in caveat emptor... but at the same time...

Is a goodwill gesture to soften the blow (at least a little) and acknowledge the monetary support given by everyone who invested heavily really too much to ask for?

I know it can't be Birthdays or Holidays all the time as effective business models don't work that way and I don't think anyone here in this thread thinks so, either, but...

Because of just how much investment has gone into Alliances...

Maybe a little something and not just for the late-investors but for the early-investors, too?

GothicKratos

I think a lot of people are taking the phrase "in the past" way too hard. Generally speaking, people don't use that phrase to reference three weeks ago...so...can we put the pitchforks away until say, Tuesday, so they have time to take to the tickets and work with people? Then we can light a fire if needed.

A lot of this seems preemptive, since, as far as I know, no one's been denied any compensation yet. As I mentioned in my previous post (page two), the only name dropped Alliances were akin to X-Men, Venoms, etc - i.e. the Top 25, basically - which it's hard to argue any of them haven't reaped their due reward.

Unknown

To retain goodwill, I think the solution is simple:

Everyone who bought a roster slot should be compensated something for each purchase. What that something is likely doesn't matter as long as it is not a complete slap in the face. An anniversary like token, 600HP (the minimum price for a slot), or 3200 ISO (the equivalent of 600HP if buying iso directly) would probably feel about right. Even for a solo contributor to a 20 person alliance that is only 15 tokens, 9000HP, or 48000ISO which hardly breaks the bank for D3, but at least feels like a thank you for spending money to support them.

My wife and I bought all the slots in our alliance and even though we are at 20, we have never placed top 100. We have not recouped that investment in HP/ISO (no covers below T100). Now on top of losing our advantage we will have to compete with all the new alliances that are going to spring up overnight. High level players will be hard to retain as they jump ship and start their own leaving a lot of alliances laid to waste. This does NOT promote teamwork, it does promote chaos.

Unknown

GothicKratos wrote:

I think a lot of people are taking the phrase "in the past" way too hard. Generally speaking, people don't use that phrase to reference three weeks ago...so...can we put the pitchforks away until say, Tuesday, so they have time to take to the tickets and work with people? Then we can light a fire if needed.

A lot of this seems preemptive, since, as far as I know, no one's been denied any compensation yet. As I mentioned in my previous post (page two), the only name dropped Alliances were akin to X-Men, Venoms, etc - i.e. the Top 25, basically - which it's hard to argue any of them haven't reaped their due reward.

They said anyone in the last week. Pretty limited.

Unknown

When Alliances were first introduced, the third cover in every event was Alliance-only, so I started one and paid for 10 slots. At that point I realized there was no way I could afford a full 20, and no way we'd ever place in the top 100. My best option was to abandon it and join a 20-slot Alliance.

I'm not expecting any compensation, and I'm fine with the change, but to say that I benefited from the old system is simply not true. Those Hero Points were basically thrown away.