Possibly new unethical alliance collusion - yay

Unknown

I needed a couple of Punisher covers so I tried to game the Magnetic Mayhem tournament. I entered early-ish and right after the start of a Magneto lightning roundto try to get an easier bracket, hopefully the hardest hardcore would either be in the lightning round or waiting for a later start.

As I was playing the tournament, though, I realized I still need another blue Magneto cover that is the 1200 point progression reward. So I thought, maybe I'll push and shield much earlier than I might have to try to get the cover. As long as I spend less than 1250 HP on shields (shouldn't be a big problem), I save money and also get the progression rewards in between. But I am the only one pushing and now I can't get more than 9 points for a battle because I am ahead so far.

I've seen others complain about getting nothing but 1 or 0 point battles. Then I had an idea. I wonder if anyone is already doing this.

What if you coordinated between three members of your alliance about when to start a tournament to ensure you are in different brackets, then when to attack and shield? If you were near in MMR, you would appear in each others' queue, right? So you arrange a schedule to shield and unshield at certain times. You queue each other up during the unshielded period, then everyone reshields and attacks. Should guarantee at least three 20 point fights, no matter where in the standings you are, right? And if everyone is in a different bracket, everyone should benefit equally. You just agree that you will only attack each other during shielded periods. I suppose that you may only be able to coordinate with two others, depending on the tourney, because you may need that last node to break your shield.

Could this work? Is anyone already attempting it?

Unknown

I thought about that too, however there's a substantial bit of effort in that collusion and it's far from perfect. If you get to a high enough level you're everyone's target no matter what.

I think it's a "we'll cross that bridge if our journey takes us that way".

Unknown

That also points out that the progression rewards all but impossible to get now. There just are not enough players pushing passed 1000 points to get matches that mean anything. Even in the last Elite event the leaders barely made it to 1400+ and that's with an unbracketed everyone pushing for points like crazy event.

Unknown

Progression rewards are pretty much a joke now. I think It may have been wishful thinking to try to get the 1200 cover. If I dropped day long shields at this point I would probably win the tournament. I remember I got the 1200 point progression reward once, a while ago, and it was just one magical night where I had a mediocre team and fought 40 point matches for about 90 minutes that took me from 300 or so all the way up. I still think I was only top 15 in the tourney. Those were the days.

Nemek

UncleSam wrote:

That also points out that the progression rewards all but impossible to get now. There just are not enough players pushing passed 1000 points to get matches that mean anything. Even in the last Elite event the leaders barely made it to 1400+ and that's with an unbracketed everyone pushing for points like crazy event.

The last Elite event went to 1800.

Unknown

Not sure how that is unethical. Wouldn't really work as you are still getting attacked by others, so your "friend/friends" would need to pushing hard, then you shield after queing them.up. then they shield and you attack. Then they unshield and que you up etc. That's a lot of shielding and I am sure that is a net benefit for the devs as 3 ppl just burned shields and pushed how hard everyone else needs to push to compete in those ppl's brackets. Also, would be pretty irritating trying to coordinate those pushes with ppl in your mmr except by coincidence of someone being in your mmr due to no in game chat.

Alliance changes nothing about doing this one way or the other though of course. I always wondered if ppl.would do this with the elite tournement though. 2-3 ppl shielding and pushing in unity.

Also, as uncle Sam mentioned, it does highlight how stupid the progress rewards still are. I haven't seen or heard a score break 1250 in months in pvp. I haven't seen a score go 4 digit at all, but I know some ppl break the 1k mark in the PvP. When I mentioned how to redo the progress rewards a while ago I put the 3*** at 1000 and the 4**** at 1200. With no incentive to push, and the newer way shields work (hidden instead of always available) they made the 4**** nearly impossible and the 3*** not worth the effort.

Maybe its time the progress rewards are total score earned and not current score. So if you earn 500 points but lose 200 your progression score is 500 while your current score, used for placement, is 300. Of course progression points needed would skyrocket for the higher level things but at least they would hopefully in theory be obtainable. Of course, won't happen, because the 3*** is a carrot and the 4**** is a false dream.being used go try and get ppl to waste hp/shields. Not sure its working though as the carrot is still too far out for the horse to even bother.

Unknown

Unethical because it artificially manipulates tournament results by non-participatory behavior. Like tanking, although tanking seems to be so commonplace at this point that people consider it more of a metagame. I'm not saying one should be ostracized for unethical practices, short of outright hacking the game, but it is still unfairly biasing tournament results. There's a phrase in baseball, though, "If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin" so I'm not trying to call anyone out.

It would be an incredible feat of organization to pull off. I suppose the only value that one could get out of it would be in the big paid tourneys, because shield attack shield is such a common practice there anyway.

Unknown

I'd love to hit that 1200 for that last blue cover but I think it would take sheer luck for me. I shielded at 1009 for blind justice and easily took 1st but it was a slog and by then any retal I was losing 40+ but had mainly 10 pt fights at best. Without other shielded people available, you have to get very lucky to break even1k and I only did it by tanking my mmr.