How about locking members within an alliance during events?

ZekeBarrett

Why don't you guys lock the rosters during events like what is done in Ultron? This would prevent mercs bouncing around from alliance to alliance. Let's have alliances battle it out instead of mercs coming in at the final hour changing the results. I have no issue with mercs bouncing around but once the event starts then it's up to everyone on your roster to do your job. That's the only way an alliance can truly have bragging rights!!

Malcrof

I am against this, and i will explain why. I run a casual alliance, yes we routinely get T250's in PVE and PVP for some bonus iso and HP.. but if a member needs covers badly and has a good score, we help them merc out. That is the point of our alliance and many others, to help people transition. If you lock people in, then you are crippling many transitoners ability to finish covering people.

Also, PVP's are events as well, this would block them from being able to merc in PVP.

Yes it can be abused, but if not for merc'ing many many times when myself and many alliance-mates were just starting our 2* transitions, we would not be where we are now.

I understand the frustrations, having finished #102 as an alliance for a 4* release once, but you have to take the good with the bad.

There are also people who are just professional merc's, this is how they play, and what makes it enjoyable.. i would not take it away from them either.

ZekeBarrett

I understand your point Malcrof so lock the rosters once you decide on an event. If you want to merc out, select your alliance wisely before accepting one of the slices. I used to be in a top ranked team in another game before the license was pulled and there were events you had to choose teammates carefully before the event started because you were then locked in.

This is already been done in the Ultron event so if there is a new cover in the Ultron event, wouldn't your player(s) have to join a different alliance prior to the event to get that new cover already?

Malcrof

ZekeBarrett wrote:

I understand your point Malcrof so lock the rosters once you decide on an event. If you want to merc out, select your alliance wisely before accepting one of the slices. I used to be in a top ranked team in another game before the license was pulled and there were events you had to choose teammates carefully before the event started because you were then locked in.

This is already been done in the Ultron event so if there is a new cover in the Ultron event, wouldn't your player(s) have to join a different alliance prior to the event to get that new cover already?

Ultron is the exception, as it is the only pure alliance based event. Yes it has some individual progression, but the big rewards are set aside for the alliance by unlocking the higher nodes. For these events, shuffling is done ahead of time, and yes, mercs find their alliances prior to starting, but after the PVE they are finishing ends.

So it would change nothing.. as a previous merc-a-alot.. when Ultron came around, the alliance i had just merc'd with, i stayed with for Ultron, if they are T100 chances are Ultron will have a similar outcome.

But asking people to choose an alliance permanently or miss out is not a good idea. Events overlap, it is how it is set-up. If i merc out for a couple of covers, but need nothing from the next event.. are you saying, too bad to all those who need those covers, i have to stay forever? By locking for events, no-one would ever be able to change an alliance or join a new one.. as all events overlap at the start/end with the previous one.

It is just not a feasible option.

Unknown

Malcrof wrote:

But asking people to choose an alliance permanently or miss out is not a good idea. Events overlap, it is how it is set-up. If i merc out for a couple of covers, but need nothing from the next event.. are you saying, too bad to all those who need those covers, i have to stay forever? By locking for events, no-one would ever be able to change an alliance or join a new one.. as all events overlap at the start/end with the previous one.

It is just not a feasible option.

While I neither agree or disagree with the original poster's suggestion. I think it may have been misunderstood here.

If I'm not mistaken, Ultron still allows people to leave alliances, but their points count with the alliance they started the event in.

If this was rolled out to all events you would surely get a situation where for example during a PvE event someone switches to a new alliance. A PvP event then starts before the end of the PvE event. They would at that point simultaneously be earning points toward their old alliance's PvE score and toward their new alliances PvP score.

I wouldn't have thought this would be that hard to implement, depending on the architecture of the coding of course.

If it does work like this it could be open to some exploitation where a player casts their lot with a strong PvE alliance for the PvE and a strong PvP alliance for the PvP. Likewise a player could join early in an event and effectively be the 21st member of an alliance and not be able to participate for the whole event, but that's the price you gotta pay with this system - a built in countermeasure forcing mercs to sit out every other event.

Malcrof

Grantosium wrote:

Malcrof wrote:

But asking people to choose an alliance permanently or miss out is not a good idea. Events overlap, it is how it is set-up. If i merc out for a couple of covers, but need nothing from the next event.. are you saying, too bad to all those who need those covers, i have to stay forever? By locking for events, no-one would ever be able to change an alliance or join a new one.. as all events overlap at the start/end with the previous one.

It is just not a feasible option.

While I neither agree or disagree with the original poster's suggestion. I think it may have been misunderstood here.

If I'm not mistaken, Ultron still allows people to leave alliances, but their points count with the alliance they started the event in.

If this was rolled out to all events you would surely get a situation where for example during a PvE event someone switches to a new alliance. A PvP event then starts before the end of the PvE event. They would at that point simultaneously be earning points toward their old alliance's PvE score and toward their new alliances PvP score.

I wouldn't have thought this would be that hard to implement, depending on the architecture of the coding of course.

If it does work like this it could be open to some exploitation where a player casts their lot with a strong PvE alliance for the PvE and a strong PvP alliance for the PvP. Likewise a player could join early in an event and effectively be the 21st member of an alliance and not be able to participate for the whole event, but that's the price you gotta pay with this system - a built in countermeasure forcing mercs to sit out every other event.

Was more thinking Story Mode, one starts before the other ends. The first sub of an event is usually well underway before the final sub of the previous event is over. This would end in a perma-lock. Say you choose a 5pm EST end time. The event doesn't end until Midnight, but the new event starts at 5pm (most people tend to pick the same end times).

So when 1 event ends.. for you to have a chance at high placement in the next event, you have to start your first clear almost immediately after your portion of the previous event is over. Most people are well through 1 or 2 clears of the new Story mode event before getting the alliance reward (after midnight or whenever final sub ends) from the previous event.

Warbringa

I agree with op. I don't think mercing was the original intent of the developers when they created alliances. The original intent was to foster a team and social environment among players, not as tool to boost individuals cover progression by hopping alliances. I would have no problem with them ending mercing.

Unknown

Malcrof wrote:

Was more thinking Story Mode, one starts before the other ends. The first sub of an event is usually well underway before the final sub of the previous event is over. This would end in a perma-lock. Say you choose a 5pm EST end time. The event doesn't end until Midnight, but the new event starts at 5pm (most people tend to pick the same end times).

So when 1 event ends.. for you to have a chance at high placement in the next event, you have to start your first clear almost immediately after your portion of the previous event is over. Most people are well through 1 or 2 clears of the new Story mode event before getting the alliance reward (after midnight or whenever final sub ends) from the previous event.

I don't know how server intensive it would be, but the server presumably runs like a database so presumably it can have various sets defined on it. Let's say for Alliance A and Alliance B (for lack of more imaginative names) it has sets of data called:

AllianceA_current
AllianceB_current
AllianceA_140815
AllianceB_140815
AllianceA_210815
AllianceB_210815

AllianceA_current and AllianceB_current would be live, constantly updating groups as to who is in each of those alliances at any one time.

AllianceA_140815 would be effectively a sample taken on a particular date around a week ago 14/08/15 (or for Americans 08/14/15), once that set contains 20 pieces of data (players) that set does not update. The players contained in that data set would each have their score counted towards Alliance A's PvE score for the event that started on 14/08/15. If a "Player 1" in the AllianceA_140815 sample set is no longer part of the AllianceA_current set at the end of the PvE they could still have their score counted towards AllianceA_140815's score and share in the rewards.

Meanwhile our friend "Player 1" could have joined Alliance B on 16th August (just for example). Player 1 could start the next PvE on 21st August (thus becoming a part of data set AllianceB_210815) immediately after finishing the first PvE without missing any play time. Player 1 could be 45 minutes into the 21st August PvE playing for AllianceB and then receive prizes based on their previous score for the 14th August PvE where they were counted as part of Alliance A.

Point being once you are in the 14th August sample bracket you won't be able to leave that bracket, but that bracket will become obsolete once the event concludes and prizes have all been handed out.

Obviously there would be drawbacks and kinks to work out. If the AllianceA_140815 bracket fills and then a new player joins the alliance (after someone has left) they will not be able to participate in the event in progress as part of the alliance they have just joined. Ideally, however, unless they are a brand new player who has never been in an alliance before they should be playing for their previous alliance until the current PvE ends. Similarly a block would have to be put in place to stop people contributing scores to more than 1 alliance for the same PvE event.

If professional sports teams can sign players for the following season and wait for that season to commence before the player actively starts contributing to them, it's possible to have an alliance member signed up who is just seeing out their commitment to the end of the 'contract' with their old team, especially with no events surpassing 7 days.

Not sure if I'm making myself any clearer at all or just being confusing when the post gets this long, but hopefully makes some sense. Again, I'm not saying this is what should be done, I'm just saying it's possible if it was what was wanted.

slidecage

i said this like 6 months ago even before 4 stars started coming and was shot down. After ulton i can see how this could go very bad very fast by locking people in. People could be booted from allance without warning


never going to happen. If your in a strong PVE team mercing should never hurt you much (besides the STATE PVE with the freaking waves)

ZekeBarrett

Slidecage, I'm in a great alliance but what I see is the #1 & #2 aliance spots for awards will pretty much go to alliances that have mercs. Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong if there's a #1 or #2 alliance that doesn't use mercs.

slidecage

ZekeBarrett wrote:

Slidecage, I'm in a great alliance but what I see is the #1 & #2 aliance spots for awards will pretty much go to alliances that have mercs. Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong if there's a #1 or #2 alliance that doesn't use mercs.

yea you can say almost the top 10 use tons of mercs.. Way to really stop this if you dont want to lock teams.. you leave a team you can not come back into that team for the rest of the season, Now that would kill mercs in a second

what also sucks is now with all of the mercs it means that a commander must be in the final slice just to make sure their team makes top 100.. We was 60th once with few hours to go and we ended at 101 cause of mercs

and its just not PVE your starting to see this in PVP weekly (not just end of season)

Ding

^that's why having multiple commanders is such a great idea. Events where the final shard ends after midnight can be managed by one commander from one timezone while events that end in the afternoon can be managed by another commander.