CareBearStare Alliance Thread

DecoyDuck

Season 2 cover pulls...
1. BagMan - Blue
2. A Wolvie Yellow
3. M.Hawk Red
4. Steve Rogers Blue (The final respec!)
5. Steve Rogers Yellow
6. Bagman Yellow
7. C.Storm Green
8. Bullseye Purple
9. Rags Red (Wait, they still make these?)
10. Lazy Thor Green
1. M.Hawk Blue
2. C.Mags Blue (fancy)
3. Punisher Green
4. C. Storm Green
5. MN.Mags Red
6. Thor Green
7. Thor Yellow
8. A. Wolvie Yellow
9. Thor Red
10. C.Storm Yellow

So not terrible, finally get the 3/5/5 Steve Rogers build... What? 5 yellow? Whatevs.

DecoyDuck

So it's time for a little talk with the Bears.
We've been working hard for the last 2 Seasons and we've been needing to take a down it a few notches. We've proven ourselves time and time again. Our success isn't a fluke. This is an amazing team.

It's vacation mode time! Or hibernation mode time. Apply the appropriate bear lingo. Many of you all have expressed the need to take it easier. I need/want/ought to take it easier myself. And I'm not complaining like the game is too hard...

BRAG! I've been in top10 in all but 1 PVP this season (950+ points each). I have over 13K Season 2 points. I hit number 1 twice in PVPs this Season. Number 14 in Season rank.

What does this mean? For me, it means playing less. Less PVP, less PVE. Less points. Maybe even miss a day It means the Season 3 Fury cover might not be in contention for our team (whichever alliance was 101st rank, you're welcome). It means alliance cover rewards might not be happening.

But more importantly, it means we get to be in a great alliance to chat and commiserate with, while reducing game fatigue and burnout. It means you can play casually. It means you can

Shall the alliance still be managed? Yes. It's more important than ever to have a team that communicates with each other. I know some of you still don't communicate with us (other than an occasional "hi" in the chat). That's not gonna work. You know who you are. We know who you are. We'll need to open slots up for new Bears who want to hibernate here too.

So let's talk. Reply. Hit the PM button. Make me clarify. Stare.

user311

So season 2 was supposed to be easier than season 1. Was supposed to slack off. I know I didn't. Still finished worse than in Season 1. I think the level of competition is rising. A lot of the alliances are getting more aggressive. I feel like we owe it to ourselves to get that 3rd Nick Fury cover, but unless I spend money on it, its not doing anything for me. Individual events (PVP/PVE) are more important to me than seasons.

Im on vacation mid month, also.

Unknown

Great job everyone, we even got points to spare

user311 wrote:

So season 2 was supposed to be easier than season 1. Was supposed to slack off. I know I didn't. Still finished worse than in Season 1. I think the level of competition is rising. A lot of the alliances are getting more aggressive. I feel like we owe it to ourselves to get that 3rd Nick Fury cover, but unless I spend money on it, its not doing anything for me. Individual events (PVP/PVE) are more important to me than seasons.

Im on vacation mid month, also.

Yeah, I'm on the same boat. Could have the third Fury cover for colection's sake but he'll just sit there being pretty like IW and X-Force anyway. Not planning on spending $150 to max him.
Also on vacation for the last week of the season, so it's not really my place to say I want the Fury cover because I won't be here for the end of the season.

Unknown

sup123 wrote:

Great job everyone, we even got points to spare

user311 wrote:

So season 2 was supposed to be easier than season 1. Was supposed to slack off. I know I didn't. Still finished worse than in Season 1. I think the level of competition is rising. A lot of the alliances are getting more aggressive. I feel like we owe it to ourselves to get that 3rd Nick Fury cover, but unless I spend money on it, its not doing anything for me. Individual events (PVP/PVE) are more important to me than seasons.

Im on vacation mid month, also.

Yeah, I'm on the same boat. Could have the third Fury cover for colection's sake but he'll just sit there being pretty like IW and X-Force anyway. Not planning on spending $150 to max him.
Also on vacation for the last week of the season, so it's not really my place to say I want the Fury cover because I won't be here for the end of the season.

Where I come from, we call this "a blessing in disguise".

I think what DD was saying, is DD himself will no longer be shield hopping form 900 to 1300 points per PvP and that he is not expecting anyone else to either. If, for example, "Silver" wants to go all out crazy and get 1700 in an event, he is more than welcome too and is his perrogative. I don't think DD is saying we are going to miss every alliance reward over the course of the season. Some in the alliance managed the 1100 ~ 1300 points and others, the 300 point mark. There was a balance. So, some of those who were hitting those higher point tiers will maybe hit lower point tiers. And the expectation is that if you want that reward, you (not pointing at anyone in particular - I promise) have to work for it a little harder - for personal rewards and that extra contribution, from 300 to 450? points might make the difference in achieving that alliance reward. That is to say, with some decreasing into more casual some of the lower end can easily compensate with a little effort IF they choose to.

Most of us are competitve by nature and we will see how things play out. I think a lot of people will be on vacation towards the end of season 3, beginning of season 4. So expectation of "another Fury" might be far fetched. Especially considering how the last day/last event can get really weird and competitive.

From past experience, 600 per player (which to me seems relatively casual) gives a 12000 point overall in PvP and is usually enough for a Top 100. Maybe this season it will be 625 or 630... Nothing too intense or too hard for everyone to hit. Of course, at 600 points, you probably cannot expect top 10, but possibly still be in cover range and in alliance cover range...

If you want to do more, go ahead and feel free to do so. For sake of argument, end of season 2 for me, became real casual. I started stopping the shield hopping thing and was contenting myself with 800 - 900 points. My roster is not the best out there, but was able to manage it in my way, MMR balancing is the key.

I was really sad when they **** my SpiderMan. I mean, I almost quit the game over it. I learnt to live without him and realize now just what a crutch he was. I have become competitive again, and that makes me happy.

I would sugest, give it a week and see where it leads us. After that, if you are not happy, dissatisfied, Kamu and DD are good listeners. Will field all your concerns and questions. The alliance is full of great people. Keeping it intact is key. But, if you choose to want to benefit or better yourself elsewhere (again not talking to anyone in particular - promise!!) you are rightfully free to do so.

Stare, stare, stare!!!

P.S.

Everyone in this alliance and that was ever in this alliance - regardless of anyone's opinon, in my eyes are the greatest bunch of people!!

Keep on staring!

Unknown

I am definitely ready to take it down a notch. I'm glad we got this cover and all but it really isn't going to change the game for me, and the third one won't be any different. I like being part of the alliance and having the camaraderie, and I like that we mostly seem to be on the same page with slowing down our pace a bit.

My wife is due to give birth within the next few weeks, so there's a more than good chance my available game time is going to get cut back drastically. Though the odd mid-night MPQ match while awake with the baby is a possibility as well

Unknown

Errrr. I'm with Tonzil?

And feel to PM me or us or some subset of us at any point you have something you want to say but not post in the forum. We're really quite on top of our PMs and should get back to you quickly.

My cynical side may be showing, but I think we will probably take it easy for a while and get back to our old habits. Too many of us are just that addicted. It's also ok if we don't. But anyone that is really interested in the alliance cover in the next few events should be aware that they are responsible to let others know that they want to go for it hard, and they should expect to have to shoulder a slightly bigger share of the responsibility for getting us there.

Unknown

Kamuuu wrote:

Errrr. I'm with Tonzil?

And feel to PM me or us or some subset of us at any point you have something you want to say but not post in the forum. We're really quite on top of our PMs and should get back to you quickly.

My cynical side may be showing, but I think we will probably take it easy for a while and get back to our old habits. Too many of us are just that addicted. It's also ok if we don't. But anyone that is really interested in the alliance cover in the next few events should be aware that they are responsible to let others know that they want to go for it hard, and they should expect to have to shoulder a slightly bigger share of the responsibility for getting us there.

That being said, I brought my Hoody from 40 to 65 and have another 25ish K in ISO to throw at him.

I am going to try and get the Yellow Hood reward as well (1100 points) - because I want those Storm covers! I would be happy to get the alliance Black, but will not cry over it as I think her ideal build is 5/5/3.

Unknown

Tonzil wrote:

Kamuuu wrote:

Errrr. I'm with Tonzil?

And feel to PM me or us or some subset of us at any point you have something you want to say but not post in the forum. We're really quite on top of our PMs and should get back to you quickly.

My cynical side may be showing, but I think we will probably take it easy for a while and get back to our old habits. Too many of us are just that addicted. It's also ok if we don't. But anyone that is really interested in the alliance cover in the next few events should be aware that they are responsible to let others know that they want to go for it hard, and they should expect to have to shoulder a slightly bigger share of the responsibility for getting us there.

That being said, I brought my Hoody from 40 to 65 and have another 25ish K in ISO to throw at him.

I am going to try and get the Yellow Hood reward as well (1100 points) - because I want those Storm covers! I would be happy to get the alliance Black, but will not cry over it as I think her ideal build is 5/5/3.

Is her ideal build still 5/5/3? Considering her red's AP cost doesn't go down with more covers anymore, I'm not sure a 5/3/5 or 5/4/4 wouldn't be better.
Anyway, she seems pretty underwhelming, in 3* territory and using green and red her abilties are not that great.

Unknown

sup123 wrote:

Tonzil wrote:

Kamuuu wrote:

Errrr. I'm with Tonzil?

And feel to PM me or us or some subset of us at any point you have something you want to say but not post in the forum. We're really quite on top of our PMs and should get back to you quickly.

My cynical side may be showing, but I think we will probably take it easy for a while and get back to our old habits. Too many of us are just that addicted. It's also ok if we don't. But anyone that is really interested in the alliance cover in the next few events should be aware that they are responsible to let others know that they want to go for it hard, and they should expect to have to shoulder a slightly bigger share of the responsibility for getting us there.

That being said, I brought my Hoody from 40 to 65 and have another 25ish K in ISO to throw at him.

I am going to try and get the Yellow Hood reward as well (1100 points) - because I want those Storm covers! I would be happy to get the alliance Black, but will not cry over it as I think her ideal build is 5/5/3.

Is her ideal build still 5/5/3? Considering her red's AP cost doesn't go down with more covers anymore, I'm not sure a 5/3/5 or 5/4/4 wouldn't be better.
Anyway, she seems pretty underwhelming, in 3* territory and using green and red her abilties are not that great.

Hmmm... that might be a good point... more data required!

user311

Not sure what this Hood event will bring. I have never used him but leveled him up to 60 for this event. Those 2 covers I got helped out a lot. Pretty miffed about that 9 Red for Storm. Not worth my time.

Unknown

I'd definitely like to get Storm covers... argh. Why do you torture me, MPQ??!?!?

Unknown

Tonzil wrote:

AGCENTURION (coincidence? I think not), I am pretty does it on purpose to pick up SILVER!

Oh no, you've found me out, Tonzil - in an effort to make the meta more interesting, I calculate out how many points I should have to score to land myself in the silver sweet spot for alliance rankings for each event, hahaha. My suit is actually a GOLD/titanium alloy though, so I had to at least snag the Lord of Thunder trophy from DD.

Jokes aside, want to congratulate everyone on the season 2 performances! Great job! I know a lot of you were nervous towards the end there, but not me. Much like a fair bit of our finishes in individual PvPs, I expected a final surge to push us into safe territory...and once again you all didn't disappoint. FURY COVERS FOR EVERYONE!!! By the way, has anyone used him in a match yet...I took him for a spin a while ago and I have to say, I kind of think his blue power animation rivals Punisher's for coolest in the game .

Speaking of rewards, my 1141(personal best) in Lard of Thunder was unfortunately not enough to push me into top 25 for the season. *sniff sniff* Only one 10 pack, but it wasn't a terrible one:

Red Hulk (My Hulk's now cover maxed, but at the sub-optimal 5/5/3 - meh)
Red MNMags
Yellow Bagman (Doubly useless because, Bagman AND because already cover maxed...for some reason)
Green A. Wolvie
Purple Daken-lite (2*)
Red A. Wolvie
Blue Daredevil (read: 500 ISO)
Blue CStorm
Green Lazy Thor (read: 500 ISO)
Red Human Torch (Really happy about this one, mine's now 4/2/5 I think he would be a pretty scary defensive character to go up against so I want to start leveling him soon)

So yea, not bad, 4 gold covers, 2 useable, 1 desirable. Would have loved a blue hood or GREEN PUNISHER (@DD - I think you got mine in your 10-pack), but they'll come around eventually. Hopefully as PvP individual rewards given all this talk of slowing down this season - which I am in agreement with. I'm ready to kick back a bit and only really push extra hard when I really need/want the covers (like the Mororo awards in Unholy Outlaw). This game can take a lot out of you if you're trying to stay consistently competitive over such long stretches of time (i.e. Seasons that start back to back when they could easily be spaced a few day or even a week apart to give people a chance to rest, recuperate, and step away from their phones/tablets/computers for more than a few hours, D3!), more than I feel like any game where the prize is not cold, hard cash (or anything else of value in the real world) should. Gotta play in cycles or go mad...I choose the former.

I don't think this will DEFINITELY knock us out of contention for a Fury cover (and I REALLY want that yellow cover, because I'm pretty curious to see what it does), but I acknowledge that it probably will. To echo Kamu, I think some of us may end up taking it easy for a while, and then falling back into old habits - they do die hard, ya know. If that's the case, and we still end up pulling off another top 100 this season, awesome! If not, it's not a huge deal. Our collective sanity is more important. Can always just pick a yellow cover up when they release him as a PvP top prize...or jump ship temporarily and become a merc in the last days of the season if we're completely out of the running hahaha. Anyway, that's my 2 cents. I feel more relaxed already.

STARE.

Unknown

What ever happened to opening a new Alliance for hibernation? Maybe make 2 (CareBearSleep & CareBearNap). Five members each so it's free, and if anyone wants to sit out an event, they just jump over to the hibernation tents and let someone else in that wants to play that event. Each person logs in each day to do 1 match while in their sleeping bag so they can get daily rewards and daily ISO. Then they go off to enjoy their "nap".

It would require more communication. But for the most part, I think we all communicate pretty well.

DecoyDuck

aaronschmiz wrote:

What ever happened to opening a new Alliance for hibernation? Maybe make 2 (CareBearSleep & CareBearNap). Five members each so it's free, and if anyone wants to sit out an event, they just jump over to the hibernation tents and let someone else in that wants to play that event. Each person logs in each day to do 1 match while in their sleeping bag so they can get daily rewards and daily ISO. Then they go off to enjoy their "nap".

It would require more communication. But for the most part, I think we all communicate pretty well.

Well, if were totally honest, our communication isn't THAT coordinated. You're right, the original intent was to create a secondary alliance to take a break in... but what happened was the 1.)A lot of people wanted to go a bit easier and 2.)We wanted to stick together. So we'll give this newer more casual approach a try. This alliance still likes the game, but we're all a bit winded after the grind.

Tonzil is correct - I was a little more gloomy than I should've been. I'm not guaranteeing that will not make top100 (in PVP, PVE, or Seasons), but just wanting to give everyone a realistic expectation. Double-negatives. Gotta read it twice to make sense of it.

I'm glad to have so many Bears chime in so far. Communication is gonna be very important going forward and those that can't/won't communicate will not be ready when the Bears fight back!

Unknown

DecoyDuck wrote:

aaronschmiz wrote:

What ever happened to opening a new Alliance for hibernation? Maybe make 2 (CareBearSleep & CareBearNap). Five members each so it's free, and if anyone wants to sit out an event, they just jump over to the hibernation tents and let someone else in that wants to play that event. Each person logs in each day to do 1 match while in their sleeping bag so they can get daily rewards and daily ISO. Then they go off to enjoy their "nap".

It would require more communication. But for the most part, I think we all communicate pretty well.

Well, if were totally honest, our communication isn't THAT coordinated. You're right, the original intent was to create a secondary alliance to take a break in... but what happened was the 1.)A lot of people wanted to go a bit easier and 2.)We wanted to stick together. So we'll give this newer more casual approach a try. This alliance still likes the game, but we're all a bit winded after the grind.

Tonzil is correct - I was a little more gloomy than I should've been. I'm not guaranteeing that will not make top100 (in PVP, PVE, or Seasons), but just wanting to give everyone a realistic expectation. Double-negatives. Gotta read it twice to make sense of it.

I'm glad to have so many Bears chime in so far. Communication is gonna be very important going forward and those that can't/won't communicate will not be ready when the Bears fight back!

Yes. I like the idea of all of us staying together. I love you guys/gals. You people are the only reason I am still playing this game.

But I know there are past Bears that wouldn't mind filling in from time to time when someone goes on vacation, or just needs a general break. That is all I was saying. I don't want us to be like other Alliances that are "Alliance 1", "Alliance2", "Alliance 3", "Alliance 4" etc. That is too much mayhem and leads to hoping for ranking reasons, which I am not cool with.

Unknown

So I decided I'd give tanking my MMR a shot. I'm getting a little tired of having to face nothing but full 141 teams. I've been doing it for a few months now and its not that I can't beat them, just that it's a bit annoying how long it takes.

For the record I don't have a single 141 character. There's a serious diminishing return on the amount of ISO invested for what you get after a point and if I'm winning consistently with 120s I don't see the need to spend more ISO right now.

So last night I earned about 150 pts in each PvP (shield and hood) and then switched in a tank team by winning a match against one of the available seed teams. I picked the team comp just because I thought it would be kind of fun while still effective, 34 Nick Fury, 50 XWolv, 55 IW or 110 Hood, real candy-**** POS team. Should be cake for the masses of 141s to take down. This morning I start up the game to find I have won points. ****?!?

Unknown

adamLmpq wrote:

So I decided I'd give tanking my MMR a shot. I'm getting a little tired of having to face nothing but full 141 teams. I've been doing it for a few months now and its not that I can't beat them, just that it's a bit annoying how long it takes.

For the record I don't have a single 141 character. There's a serious diminishing return on the amount of ISO invested for what you get after a point and if I'm winning consistently with 120s I don't see the need to spend more ISO right now.

So last night I earned about 150 pts in each PvP (shield and hood) and then switched in a tank team by winning a match against one of the available seed teams. I picked the team comp just because I thought it would be kind of fun while still effective, 34 Nick Fury, 50 XWolv, 55 IW or 110 Hood, real candy-**** POS team. Should be cake for the masses of 141s to take down. This morning I start up the game to find I have won points. ****?!?

Yeah, you need to put in the most horrible team imaginable. The team you put in had the full rainbow covered for one. Secondly, why didn't you use the loaner Hood at level 23???

I believe the reason you got the wins was because your hood is a much higher level than most 2* teams would have and therefore anyone with a 2* team was horribly surprised by how much Hood's blue can steal (I'm assuming you have at least 3 blue covers).

Unknown

adamLmpq wrote:

So I decided I'd give tanking my MMR a shot. I'm getting a little tired of having to face nothing but full 141 teams. I've been doing it for a few months now and its not that I can't beat them, just that it's a bit annoying how long it takes.

For the record I don't have a single 141 character. There's a serious diminishing return on the amount of ISO invested for what you get after a point and if I'm winning consistently with 120s I don't see the need to spend more ISO right now.

So last night I earned about 150 pts in each PvP (shield and hood) and then switched in a tank team by winning a match against one of the available seed teams. I picked the team comp just because I thought it would be kind of fun while still effective, 34 Nick Fury, 50 XWolv, 55 IW or 110 Hood, real candy-**** POS team. Should be cake for the masses of 141s to take down. This morning I start up the game to find I have won points. ****?!?

This kind of passive tanking will help somewhat (assuming you do actually get run over and lose a bunch) but that's the kind of tanking that has been made a lot less effective lately by changes to the game.

What some refer to as "active" tanking, either retreating repeatedly or losing repeatedly on purpose, works markedly better to reduce your mmr, but it's a very time consuming process… VERY time consuming.

Unknown

Kamuuu wrote:

What some refer to as "active" tanking, either retreating repeatedly or losing repeatedly on purpose, works markedly better to reduce your mmr, but it's a very time consuming process… VERY time consuming.

Not necessarily. I spend about a half hour on it at the beginning of each PVP and that seems to do it.