Fearless Defenders Discussion Thread

Unknown

Does each member of an alliance get the alliance rewards? If so they are potentially handing out a lot of extra hp and covers for this and it may just be for the initial alliance ranking test tournament but its making me not sorry I spent a relatively small amount of iso to make an alliance for myself and one coworker who play.

Unknown

IceIX wrote:

Impulse wrote:

frozenhero1 wrote:

I for one think the alliances are a nice addition. It's not like you're forced to be in one to participate or you're missing out on any unbelievable alliance-only prizes

That would be true, if they didn't gut existing rewards and shift them to alliances. Alliances add nothing, they're another irritating hurdle and all you get is same reward. Yippie.

The only real shift was that one Cover for the 1-5 prize went over to Alliance rewards as a test. Other than that, rewards are the same tier for tier compared to Predator and Prey, with 500 extra Iso-8 for 1-5 in the newest Tournament. I get that you might not like that we shifted a cover over, but I'm honestly not sure where the thought of "gutting" comes from. The Alliance rewards are (except for the one cover shift) a bonus on top of current rewards.

I think the problem people have is that there is virtually no teamwork in this game unless 'don't attack your own alliance members' count as teamwork, so people don't think it's right to join an alliance with a bunch of guys that you'll never work together (because you can't even if you wanted to) just to get the usual prizes. Joining an organization is a sacrifice because most people do prefer to be left alone. People join guilds and whatnot in other games because doing lets you work together with other players toward some goal you can't get otherwise. In alliance, the working together part is superficial. Whether I'm in an alliance with 4 totally average guys or the 4 best/worst MPQ players in the world, none of that changes how we actually play the game. You might as well randomly assign 4 other guys as a temporary alliance and it wouldn't be any different than most alliances formed right now.

Unknown

The Ladder wrote:

The alternative is having to have a huge team to place well. For that reason alone, I would have thought best x cumulative scores would be preferable over total cumulative or average based scoring systems. Bad morale, coasting etc - each alliance would have to police that in whatever way they see fit!

My biggest beef is not so much the system in place, rather the limited information provided to be able to govern your alliance. # of points they've earned, last login activity, etc.

Unknown

Ben Grimm wrote:

Psykopathic wrote:

None of the other rewards have changed have they? I don't know how people are seeing this as a negative. Even if your alliance doesn't do great they get a bonus reward more than before. If you do great you get a 3* cover. Not that huge of an advantage from winning. This is a positive thing.

Yes, they have. The blue cover is not included in the regular top 5 anymore, just the alliance scores.

I think that's the only issue then. If they would have left regular rewards alone and made the alliance competition a small bonus then that would have just been awesome.

Unknown

The Ladder wrote:

Riggy wrote:

Sumilea wrote:

They could do the best 5 scores from the alliance are counted. If you a one man alliance you have no hope. A 6 plus one a member could in your alliance could take the weekend off and your not effected so the bigger alliance has a slight advantage but not huge.

The problem there means that not everyone is contributing (bad for morale) but everyone benefits from it (also encourages coasting and twinking).

The alternative is having to have a huge team to place well. For that reason alone, I would have thought best x cumulative scores would be preferable over total cumulative or average based scoring systems. Bad morale, coasting etc - each alliance would have to police that in whatever way they see fit!

If you have the best 5 rating it's pretty much always going to be the same 5 guys because it is virtually certain your 5 best players will always have the 5 highest ratings unless one of them got bogged down with something in real life, or that his roster is particularly ill-suited for a given tournament. So all this means is you got up to 15 freeloaders while 5 guys do all the work. Doing the best 5 ranking would at least mean you might want to lean on your backups in case your top 5 guys all got into ultra competitive brackets.

Twysta

Yeah hopefully this is just a test run and I expect them to chop and change the prize structure for the next few tournaments until something fits.
Not sure how I feel about the new reward structure.
This does shift the gameplay slightly from the single player ethic that they said they were going for. Time will tell.

Unknown

Psykopathic wrote:

Ben Grimm wrote:

Psykopathic wrote:

None of the other rewards have changed have they? I don't know how people are seeing this as a negative. Even if your alliance doesn't do great they get a bonus reward more than before. If you do great you get a 3* cover. Not that huge of an advantage from winning. This is a positive thing.

Yes, they have. The blue cover is not included in the regular top 5 anymore, just the alliance scores.

I think that's the only issue then. If they would have left regular rewards alone and made the alliance competition a small bonus then that would have just been awesome.

Yup. If it was just an ISO/HP/Boost bonus I wouldn't care.

Unknown

The Ladder wrote:

Riggy wrote:

Sumilea wrote:

They could do the best 5 scores from the alliance are counted. If you a one man alliance you have no hope. A 6 plus one a member could in your alliance could take the weekend off and your not effected so the bigger alliance has a slight advantage but not huge.

The problem there means that not everyone is contributing (bad for morale) but everyone benefits from it (also encourages coasting and twinking).

The alternative is having to have a huge team to place well. For that reason alone, I would have thought best x cumulative scores would be preferable over total cumulative or average based scoring systems. Bad morale, coasting etc - each alliance would have to police that in whatever way they see fit!

If I'm trying to contribute and you and I each win 20 matches but you had one opponent who was slightly better than one of my opponents, then I have zero contribution - my time spent trying to help the alliance was entirely wasted assuming I fall outside of x). If I'm not able to contribute despite putting in almost exactly the same effort as you, why am I even there (given that most alliance social aspects will take place outside of the game).

I still feel like bigger != better (though I think we'll all learn as we move towards the latter part of this first alliance tourney). The amount of HP spent on shields is going to be ridiculous. One person unshielded can crush your score at the end.

MarvelMan

Psykopathic wrote:

I think that's the only issue then. If they would have left regular rewards alone and made the alliance competition a small bonus then that would have just been awesome.

For those of us who dont know anyone playing the game and would prefer not to join an alliance with people we dont know, that is a HUGE issue. It means we will fall further and further behind even if we are the best/most dedicated MPQ player.

Unknown

ihearthawthats wrote:

Toxicadam wrote:

It just dawned on me that having an alliance of 15- 20 top-tier players isn't the best idea.

Since most of your teammates will be appearing in each other's MMR-bubbles throughout the tournament, you could find yourself in a situation where half of the people you skip through are alliance members.

Why's that bad? You can make sure you don't lose points and better coordinate shield usage.

In my experience, when I get near the top of the point pool, I am faced with the same 4-6 people that give me 10-14 points. There might be one that gives me 25-30, if it happens to be an alliance member, I will have to skip over them.

Or I guess I can just queue them up and wait for them to shield ... not sure if that's good for the game or not.

Kelbris

pandaberry6 wrote:

This is the first one - they are just testing the waters and watching our reaction. They will adjust the rewards based on feedback. Nothing is set in stone but they needed to start somewhere.

That, or having a bigger alliance makes it more likely you're going to ge tthe high-end alliance reward, which means people have to buy HP and give money to the game to increase roster space, therefore alliances are now definitively monetized

Unknown

Kelbris wrote:

pandaberry6 wrote:

This is the first one - they are just testing the waters and watching our reaction. They will adjust the rewards based on feedback. Nothing is set in stone but they needed to start somewhere.

That, or having a bigger alliance makes it more likely you're going to ge tthe high-end alliance reward, which means people have to buy HP and give money to the game to increase roster space, therefore alliances are now definitively monetized

2nd place currently has 10 people and 5th place has 15. I can't wait to see how much they collectively spend on shields.

I've talked with my alliance and I think we're all going to work on our individual rewards and not worry about coordinating this one. See how it plays out and honestly - we come out ahead regardless of anything else b/c we get at least something for the alliance reward. And with 356 points, we're currently in #116th.

Unknown

If they made it so that the alliance score was the sum of the top 5 people in the alliance, I think that would be fair. That way having a larger alliance would not allow a team to always win since they would be competing with teams of 5 others, but everyone on the team wouldn't have to compete 100% all the time.

Unknown

At least the event token is back as progression reward for 300 pts

Unknown

Riggy wrote:

radav wrote:

If you as a loner or small alliance player doesn't want to join a large alliance, then that's entirely your decision and you can still place highly in the individual rankings and earn rewards appropriate for a solo player.

Really?

If you are in an 'alliance' you are still a solo player you goose. This isn't World of Warcraft.

Unknown

Psykopathic wrote:

I think that's the only issue. If they would have left regular rewards alone and made the alliance competition a small bonus then that would have just been awesome.

I agree. Sure, some people would still complain, but that's true of everything. If alliances had small or even great bonuses, fine. If you subtract from solo players, not fine. It'd be one thing if this were a multiplayer game, but it wasn't until a couple of hours ago.

Ben has mostly said what i would have.

Unknown

abuelo wrote:

Riggy wrote:

radav wrote:

If you as a loner or small alliance player doesn't want to join a large alliance, then that's entirely your decision and you can still place highly in the individual rankings and earn rewards appropriate for a solo player.

Really?

If you are in an 'alliance' you are still a solo player you goose. This isn't World of Warcraft.

Goose? Really? lol, what a random insult. And it's still group effort towards a group goal. If I don't spend on shields, you suffer.

IceIX

Team_Xtreme wrote:

At least the event token is back as progression reward for 300 pts

Yep. R49 has what we are somewhat sure is a fix for the previous token issues and why we pulled them in the first place. Since this Event will have ended (most likely) after R49 becomes required, Event tokens shouldn't be a problem. We'll see if I get to eat some crow on that one.

Unknown

IceIX wrote:

Impulse wrote:

frozenhero1 wrote:

I for one think the alliances are a nice addition. It's not like you're forced to be in one to participate or you're missing out on any unbelievable alliance-only prizes

That would be true, if they didn't gut existing rewards and shift them to alliances. Alliances add nothing, they're another irritating hurdle and all you get is same reward. Yippie.

The only real shift was that one Cover for the 1-5 prize went over to Alliance rewards as a test. Other than that, rewards are the same tier for tier compared to Predator and Prey, with 500 extra Iso-8 for 1-5 in the newest Tournament. I get that you might not like that we shifted a cover over, but I'm honestly not sure where the thought of "gutting" comes from. The Alliance rewards are (except for the one cover shift) a bonus on top of current rewards.

What about the 50 HP reward from progression? or you just decided that twe were still getting too much HP??? because i have just gotten only one 25 HP reward from tokens, compared to all the 3* covers I have sold since the change.

Unknown

MarvelMan wrote:

Psykopathic wrote:

I think that's the only issue then. If they would have left regular rewards alone and made the alliance competition a small bonus then that would have just been awesome.

For those of us who dont know anyone playing the game and would prefer not to join an alliance with people we dont know, that is a HUGE issue. It means we will fall further and further behind even if we are the best/most dedicated MPQ player.

Ok so now you can't get 1 of the colors without joining an alliance and that's better how?