The era of mercs needs to end.

Arphaxad

This has been my experience for the last several new character story events. I am the commander of an alliance where everyone gets top progression reward and we finish in the top 100, if not top 50, in most events. We focus on story mode while doing some verses.

It has gotten out of hand that we where 53rd ranked alliance on the final day of Unstable ISO-8 to get X-23 with about 12 hours to go. Everyone in the alliance played past progression.. all 20 players. When the event ended we were 107. 54 alliances did not score more than we did in the last 12 hours. We were jumped over by alliances full of mercs. This really is not what alliance rank should reward. The prizes shouldn't go to who ever can beg enough mercs to join and pad their numbers in the last hours.

There should be a change on how alliances gain points. The alliance should only get credit for the points earned by a player while a member of that alliance. This makes it a honest reward system for the alliances that participate in story mode as an alliance.

Another solution that was mentioned by someone else is to do story mode alliance progression. No more ranking. Give alliances a progression to climb to reach the top rewards.

Yes, I know this will tick off some of you that play versus but want the story alliance rewards to pad your rosters even more. Frankly, you get enough in versus mode that you don't need to take from story mode. This game attracts several types of gamers and if D3 wants to maximize their earning potential they should look to satisfy the large number of players that don't want to play versus and prefer to play story mode. If they focus on making one group happy they will loose many others. I am speaking up for those that like story mode to be player versus environment, and would enjoy it more if you remove some of the PvP aspects that have muddied that game play.

fmftint

It's not mercs that caused your alliance to fall, it was not enough points from your members. The cut line for T100 in Unstable Iso was 56.5k/member, 135% of max progression. Your team can't stop playing because they think they're safe.

But it's easier to blame "mercs"

jackstar0

Progressions tied to alliance are a fine idea (I enjoy it greatly in Ultron/Galactus), but it really punishes new players and casual alliances beyond the rewards for serious alliances.

Shadow

The final grind of the last sub is worth over 20% of the total score. 12 hours is definitely too far away from end of event to get comfortable and whatever rank you are then doesn't mean anything since so much points lies in the final 2 hours of the event.

elvy75

You underestimate amount of people playing in shard 4&5. If an alliance was having majority of players in those shards, its normal they got over you at the end.

acescracked

So much wrong with your post. Anyway, what slice were your players in? If you were all in earlier slices then you could have easily been jumped by other alliances that had most of their players in s4 or s5. The most points are in the last sub and from the final grind of that sub.

You really think 54 alliances all used mercs to jump you? There aren't that many mercs. Which is more likely, 54 alliances got more points than you guys in final 12 hours or 54 alliances found 108 mercs (2 per alliance average)? Come on man!

Pve only alliances sometimes use mercs also. It's not just "versus mode alliances" only. What is "versus mode alliances" anyway?? You could only get x-23 from pve.

You have to step up your game when a pve is giving a 4* alliance award. Everyone who's anyone in mpq plays. Your post only ticks people off because it's so short sighted and full if sour grapes.

Orion

One point is still valid though. It's ridiculous for someone to join an alliance with 3 hours to go and have all of his previously earned points count towards the alliance total. It should only be points earned while a member of the alliance. If you want to merc for an event, sign up before the event starts, a la Galactus.

Orion

elvy75 wrote:

You underestimate amount of people playing in shard 4&5. If an alliance was having majority of players in those shards, its normal they got over you at the end.

Exactly. I'm sure there are plenty of alliances where everyone is in one of the late shards. So the vast majority of their scoring would be done in the last few hours after the other shards are complete.

Malcrof

As a merc, because i cannot commit to every event, i sit in a casual alliance, and merc out when i want rewards from something.. let me say this..

85%+ of all merc'ing is done long before the 12hour mark is left in an event. the T50 alliance i was in (didn't have to merc for this particular event) had 5 or 6 of us over 65k.. and 3 or 4 who did not get the legendary, the rest were all 55-60k.

I like mercing, i like not having to commit to an event, unless it is a reward i want... i like that the game is not a job. Merc'ing needs to stay.

PeterGibbons316

I agree with OP. I've said it before, but for PvE events they should just get rid of alliance rewards and replace them with additional overall rewards. If mercing is used with 100% efficiency then the top 2000 scorers get the cover. So just make that the reward cutoff and call it a day.

Our just make all PvE events simular in structure to Ultron/Galactus....but somehow allow for individuals that aren't in an alliance to still compete.

There is really no cooperative play that happens in PvE that makes sense to have an alliance reward for.

Unknown

I'm a casual player and not ally me an alliance because I do not have time to play all pvp or pve the month. The more accurate would you demand of your own alliance for better grades. They do not have the time or are incompetent.

If you establish this requirement many will stop playing. With this will be fewer points in pvp in dispute and have more difficulties to achieve the rewards of 1000 and 1300 points. For those who play pve will even enjoy fewer players because that way they can get the rewards.

Unknown

New releases are much more competitive than other events. If you have played several of them then you should have known this.

I finished 19th in my bracket with a score of 75731 - the guy in first for that bracket finished with 82764

Several of my other alliance members got top ten with scores less than mine. We brought in four mercs to fill empty spots. All of them had less points than the top half of our alliance. One of them was a light scorer - I waited until about 6 hrs before the end to tell him he could come over to make sure our ranking was safe. One of our own members had a very low score - didn't make max progression - we carried him because we didn't need more points. We finished 30th.

Alliances switching in mercs isn't what cost you the top 100. You underestimating the points required and not paying attention to how fast you might drop at the end was.

Monochromize

I love how many people in here don't think Merc'ing is a prob - oh wait, that's because 90% of forum goers are those people. Let's be honest, no, mercing is not what Alliances were designed to be, but they also havent been changed since their inception to combat it, so... clearly everyone's happy with the status quo over there at Demi.

Arphaxad

Sorry to burst some bubbles here but, a majority of our players where in the last two slices. We only lost 6 spots in the last slice. No one in the alliance gave up or took it easy, We had plenty of top 100 finishers in their bracket and no one under the 42k progression.

Yes, there are enough mercs out there to fill in 50 alliances. Look at the alliance recruiting board. There are families of alliances that recruit dozens of mercs for new releases.

But the bottom line is that mercing goes against what an alliance is. How are you supposed to be build a team of players that enjoy playing and helping each other when you have to kick 4 or 5 to make room for mercs.

I understand that D3 makes most of their money off of shield purchases and that means sucking up to verses players, but they are missing out on cultivating another revenue stream from players in story mode. We buy health packs and roster slots. We buy recruit tokens. We have see several players quit the game because they felt like the cards where stacked against them when it came to new character releases.

And hey, D3 may not care about story mode players. It's their game and they can run it the way they want. I'm just voice an opinion held by many. Someone had to say it.

morph3us

Arphaxad wrote:

It has gotten out of hand that we where 53rd ranked alliance on the final day of Unstable ISO-8 to get X-23 with about 12 hours to go. Everyone in the alliance played past progression.. all 20 players. When the event ended we were 107. 54 alliances did not score more than we did in the last 12 hours.

Most of them did, I'm sorry to say. I'm in the same T50 alliance that Malcrof's in. Malcrof's underestimated the players who scored highly.

We had 10 players score 65K-80K, 6 at 55K-65K, 1 who played past final progression, and 3 who didn't get the legendary.

Unfortunately, you're a victim of the grind-fest that is a new 4* release. We all picked up a huge number of points in the last 4-8 hours of the event. There's a disproportionate amount of points available at the end of each event, since the point value per sub goes up as the event goes on. Often times, there's also a substantial late rubber band effect that inflates the point values even further.

Edit: Just looked back at the data. The separation between 50th and 100th was very tight for this event. There was a roughly 56K point separation between T50 and falling outside the T100. If all your members played past final progression, that's an extra 2800 points per player (assuming we divide them equally between all twenty). You're easily going to lose those points on the final 2 hour grind, which will drop you 50 places.

Shadow

Arphaxad wrote:

We had plenty of top 100 finishers in their bracket and no one under the 42k progression.

Why do you think that 42k is a lot? In case you haven't realized from the past PvEs excluding EoTS, max progression is only half of the maximum score that's achievable. If that's the requirements that you have for your members to hit during a 4* release, is it any wonder that you won't be able to be within the top 100 as an alliance. Next time, get your guys to have at least 1.5x the max progression which is 75% of the total points. 50% of total points is just not going to cut it.

Huatimus

I only play new character releases and skip old character releases, so my score went from like a usual of 0% to 200% of progression reward points. I suspect I'm not the only one in this category(well, not all as extreme as 0-200 but I think you get what I mean), which will push the average score much higher than usual. Really doubt that everyone hitting 50% of achievable points is going to cut it.

Ducky

Arphaxad wrote:

I understand that D3 makes most of their money off of shield purchases and that means sucking up to verses players, but they are missing out on cultivating another revenue stream from players in story mode. We buy health packs and roster slots. We buy recruit tokens. We have see several players quit the game because they felt like the cards where stacked against them when it came to new character releases.

First off, this is so, so wrong. They make most of their money off of roster slot purchases. Shields are a drop in the bucket.

Arphaxad wrote:

But the bottom line is that mercing goes against what an alliance is. How are you supposed to be build a team of players that enjoy playing and helping each other when you have to kick 4 or 5 to make room for mercs.

Secondly, mercs actually help keep alliances together by not forcing people who don't want to burn out by playing PvE the option to skip it and just sub out of the event instead of being kicked permanently.

Omega Red

There's this silly, stereotyped missconception of mercs in this game. Like they don't have loyalty or honor and hop from one alliance to the next like a cheap ****, looking only for their own benefit.

Reality is that mercs are a) players who can't commit to being competitive in every event or b) players who don't need the rewards offered in every event. A player in that situation could choose to remain "loyal" to his alliance, but since he stops posting big numbers in every event he eventually ends up hurting his mates more than helping. A more honest stance is simply leaving your spot in the alliance to make room for someone who needs the rewards and will benefit from committed high level playing in every event. Or he could keep playing hard in every event, winning covers he no longer needs and thus ****-blocking the progress of smaller players, just because you think mercs are horrible and you would rather have monolithic alliance memberships.

There's also little understanding of how alliance dynamics work here. Every successful alliance I have been a part of either as a regular or as a merc has the same structure: A core of 10-15 strong, veteran players. Then a small group of around 5 who either are newer to the game or are related to the commander -wife, girlfriend, son- and usually are carried by the rest of the alliance. Finally, a small group of 5 players who always are on the bubble because life happens and they can't always post big scores. They usually are very happy to leave their spot for a merc so the rest of players don't lose their rewards.

Also, mercs are not random, anonymous, unknown players with no ties to alliances. Most of them are former regulars in retirement and they often merc for the same alliances. In many cases they are family members as much as regulars. I think of mercs more as unofficial alliance members on the bench, specialists that you bring to close a game, run those last two yards in a fourth down, kick that penalty to secure the win, etc.

Pylgrim

While OP raises some valid points, I have to agree with other posters. Sitting on your laurels for the last 12 hours of an event is just asking to be overtaken, regardless of how good your position seem to be.

Stony

I love mercs. I run a T100 pvp alliance. That said, many of us also want that new shiny 4*. Not everyone can contribute to the PVE grind. My alliance is cool enough to know that if they are the bottom scorer, they may be Merced and they come back the next day. Luckily we only needed one this event. Others I've needed as many as 6 or 7. Sounds like OP needs to get better at recruiting (not begging as you so eloquently put).