Mercenary Behaviour

huskeebear

Is it an intentional game feature that "mercenaries" can leave your alliance at the tail end of an event, securing their higher placement in a top placing guild while leaving their alliance to fall out of the expected rankings?


Does this reward unscrupulous behaviour while "punishing" the majority of the alliance members?

How does this impact the spirit of fair play and an enjoyable gaming experience for the "normal" alliance member?

Alliances rise and fall as should be expected, however, other mobile games that implement a social feature have safeguards in place to limit the "screw you all on my way to the top" mentality

Arondite

It sucks, but maybe you shouldn't use Mercs if you're not a fan. They are, after all, Mercs, and you are, after all, describing what they're supposed to do.

GothicKratos

Arondite wrote:

It sucks, but maybe you shouldn't use Mercs if you're not a fan. They are, after all, Mercs, and you are, after all, describing what they're supposed to do.

I think his problem is someone left his Alliance to merc for a higher placing Alliance.

Arondite

GothicKratos wrote:

Arondite wrote:

It sucks, but maybe you shouldn't use Mercs if you're not a fan. They are, after all, Mercs, and you are, after all, describing what they're supposed to do.

I think his problem is someone left his Alliance to merc for a higher placing Alliance.

I see now. I guess I misread.

In that case, TC, make sure there's not a place for them to come back to.

MojoWild

If they left for a higher placing alliance, then I'm assuming the alliance they left wasn't going to get those rewards anyway?

huskeebear

In this particular instance


Alliance was top25 nearing the finish - to receive Starlord

2 left at the tail end joining a top10 and their points loss put us out of top50 to receive Mohawk



maybe in other scenarios, the rewards change doesn't affect the original alliance but yeah, many in my alliance have posted their disapproval because of the drop.



________

D3P has stated in an email to me that is "normal gameplay" and that we should take up our concerns with those that left. Not a feasible solution.

MojoWild

Yeah, I'm not in a very competitive alliance so I don't pay attention to the reward structure much.

That being said, I think the points earned while in a particular alliance should stay with that alliance
.
Of course, there would be the flip side happening then, someone is booted from an alliance but the points are kept. I don't think that should be as common though, or beneficial to anyone.

simonsez

I love how the first responders don't even bother to acknowledge or address the OP's point. There's no confusion as to what a merc is. The question was, is alliance-hopping to gain rewards meant to be an INTENDED FEATURE of the game, or is it an unforeseen exploit like shield-hopping and prologue healing?

And to Mojo's question, there have been plenty of instances of merc sabotage. EG mercs join alliance that the want to fk with, and then with 5 minutes to go, leave and join the alliance they intended to join all along.

Arondite

simonsez wrote:

I love how the first responders don't even bother to acknowledge or address the OP's point. There's no confusion as to what a merc is. The question was, is alliance-hopping to gain rewards meant to be an INTENDED FEATURE of the game, or is it an unforeseen exploit like shield-hopping and prologue healing?

And to Mojo's question, there have been plenty of instances of merc sabotage. EG mercs join alliance that the want to fk with, and then with 5 minutes to go, leave and join the alliance they intended to join all along.

What do you not understand about "I see now, I guess I misread"?

GothicKratos

simonsez wrote:

I love how the first responders don't even bother to acknowledge or address the OP's point. There's no confusion as to what a merc is. The question was, is alliance-hopping to gain rewards meant to be an INTENDED FEATURE of the game, or is it an unforeseen exploit like shield-hopping and prologue healing?

I don't know. I didn't design the feature. Happy now? Real awesome conversation there.

I responded to clarify on a post that seemed to (and apparently did) misunderstand what the OP was talking about. I was being a pleasant, helpful, constructive member of the community. Sue me.Or neg vote me for "supporting a troll" when I didn't respond to him at all directly to feed any fights, unlike somebody else that's pointing fingers, I simply clarified what I believed the OP was talking about, to try and attempt to make sure conversation stayed in a somewhat related vein.

Now, I'm going to go back to being nice and constructive. I've had my fill of being a jaded, self-absorbed forumite.

simonsez

GothicKratos wrote:

I responded to clarify on a post

That wasn't a clarification. It sounded like you were writing off the post as sour grapes, and not worthy of further response.

I agree with the OP that the merc situation got completely out of hand in the past PvE. I posted a similar thread in general, and we were T50, so sour grapes had nothing to do with it. But that doesn't mean I didn't recognize the problem.

GothicKratos

simonsez wrote:

GothicKratos wrote:

I responded to clarify on a post

That wasn't a clarification. It sounded like you were writing off the post as sour grapes, and not worthy of further response.

I agree with the OP that the merc situation got completely out of hand in the past PvE. I posted a similar thread in general, and we were T50, so sour grapes had nothing to do with it. But that doesn't mean I didn't recognize the problem.

I'm sorry, but I don't understand how you extrapolate that from the conversation at all. The conversation was literally;

OP: Somebody merced out of my Alliance, screwing us to give himself better rewards. It this supposed to be okay?
2nd Post: Maybe you shouldn't use mercs.
Me: I think he means somebody left his Alliance to merc for another one.

Did I miss something?

Unknown

To OP: No. I doubt merc'ing was intended behaviour, but more a result of the way the system works. However, I doubt that d3 intends to 'fix' this behaviour simply because the number of people negatively affected by it are way too low to justify the development cost. What safeguards in other games do you think could be brought to this game to prevent this?

I'm not sure if other posters are explicitly making this point, but it is: with the current system, if you want an alliance where you don't have mercenaries jumping out, commanders should filter out people who are likely to merc in the first place.

d0nk3y

daibar wrote:

To OP: No. I doubt merc'ing was intended behaviour, but more a result of the way the system works. However, I doubt that d3 intends to 'fix' this behaviour simply because the number of people negatively affected by it are way too low to justify the development cost. What safeguards in other games do you think could be brought to this game to prevent this?

Cooldowns. If the devs implemented a cooldown of <x> minutes (or hours, or days, or eons) between alliance quit and alliance join, this kind of behavior would cease immediately. Personally, I think alliance roster changes should take place in the gap between seasons, but even my alliance is guilty of the punt-and-switch just to get enough points to maintain top 50 during a recent event. Maybe the cooldown needs to extend to the alliance as well - you enter the battle with the roster you have and you fight it out, for better or for worse.

I think if you quit an alliance, you should have to wait until you join a new one. If you get kicked, you should be free to join a new alliance immediately.

Salgy

d0nk3y wrote:

daibar wrote:

To OP: No. I doubt merc'ing was intended behaviour, but more a result of the way the system works. However, I doubt that d3 intends to 'fix' this behaviour simply because the number of people negatively affected by it are way too low to justify the development cost. What safeguards in other games do you think could be brought to this game to prevent this?

Cooldowns. If the devs implemented a cooldown of <x> minutes (or hours, or days, or eons) between alliance quit and alliance join, this kind of behavior would cease immediately. Personally, I think alliance roster changes should take place in the gap between seasons, but even my alliance is guilty of the punt-and-switch just to get enough points to maintain top 50 during a recent event. Maybe the cooldown needs to extend to the alliance as well - you enter the battle with the roster you have and you fight it out, for better or for worse.

I think if you quit an alliance, you should have to wait until you join a new one. If you get kicked, you should be free to join a new alliance immediately.

Cooldowns would work... And so would a lock down... Maybe making it impossible to leave an alliance (other than being kicked) 24 hours before an event ends?!?

GothicKratos

A lot of the bigger Alliances wouldn't be very happy with that, since they tend to switch members around several "sister" Alliances.

Just some food for thought. I don't know what the "right" solution is, if there even is one.

d0nk3y

GothicKratos wrote:

A lot of the bigger Alliances wouldn't be very happy with that, since they tend to switch members around several "sister" Alliances.

Just some food for thought. I don't know what the "right" solution is, if there even is one.

Cooldowns would still work fine, if implemented only to penalize a player quitting an alliance and not one who was kicked by a commander. The bigger alliances could still continue their shenanigans, but they would have to adjust their methods slightly.

d0nk3y

Gonna bump this thread in the hopes that D3P might have something planned to calm down the mercing that happens in the last 30 minutes of an event. During The Hunt, I've watched my alliance swing as many as 8 positions in 60 seconds as mercs jump in and out of other alliances. It's incredibly frustrating to have faithfully ground the hell out of an event with 19 other people just to watch a 30K point lead turn into a 1k point deficit in the refresh of a leaderboard.

Unknown

I think some amount of mercenary behavior is fine within the game. When literally half the people used to getting alliance rewards are told, nope not this time, it results in ridiculous infighting and excessive mercenary/shuffling behaviors.

moral of the story, 4* releases bring out the worst behaviors in MPQ

d0nk3y

Cryptobrancus wrote:

I think some amount of mercenary behavior is fine within the game. When literally half the people used to getting alliance rewards are told, nope not this time, it results in ridiculous infighting and excessive mercenary/shuffling behaviors.

moral of the story, 4* releases bring out the worst behaviors in MPQ

Yeah, this is exactly it. It either destroys the alliance before the event ends or destroys it after when people rage-quit. We're down 6 players right now as fallout from coming in 51st - the details of which are over in the General Discussion merc thread... ironically, in a post by the commander of the alliance that came in 50th.

Unknown

A lot of this game seems to bring out the worst in people. While I doubt the devs are secretly laughing at people backstabbing each other for a 4*, you can't just say, 'well don't backstab each other for a 4*' when there's plenty of data that people apparently will sell their firstborn for a 4*. Sure I get that people take this game way too seriously, but you still shouldn't put mechanisms that reward people for backstabbing each other.