Why alliances are (sadly) the beginning of the end.

Unknown

jozier wrote:

How did you get booted if you bought your slot? Unless you mean you offered, but they didn't end up asking you to pay for it?

I told em I need one day to get the hp and was let in. Multiple others invested meaning I suddenly needed double what I would have had. Long story short, someone have the leader 10$ for the slot I was going to buy.

Unknown

Well a thing that I think a lot of people don't pay attention to is the fact that you don't have to have a godlike roster to do well in alliances. I know everyone notices how there are guys in the top 10 of events that have non maxed 1 star characters. That's because their scaling is so much lower that they can grind out the missions like they are nothing for the same amount of points as everyone else. Roster is meaningless, it's the size and dedication to playing time that really matters in alliances.

Nemek

MaxCavalera wrote:

I am also curious about how much restraint D3 will use on expanding alliance roster size which they almost stated was a forgone conclusion.

I really hope it doesn't happen, personally. 20 is already a lot to keep track of. Plus, I think there are something around 10 alliances that are top-tier right now. If the alliance sizes goes up by a bunch, that will probably just mean mergers of the super alliances, making it even harder to get 1st place for anybody but the super-duper alliances.

Unknown

True but where a veteran player usually has a decent stockpile of HP and can expand his alliance fairly easily especially with multiple contributors most low tier players spend every drop of HP just trying to keep ahead of their roster so they don't have to throw new covers away...

So I guess if someone wants to sponsor a whole alliance of 1* teams that would work pretty well, or obviously giving the devs the cash to fill out such an alliance would work too.

MaxCavalera

Nemek wrote:

MaxCavalera wrote:

I am also curious about how much restraint D3 will use on expanding alliance roster size which they almost stated was a forgone conclusion.

I really hope it doesn't happen, personally. 20 is already a lot to keep track of. Plus, I think there are something around 10 alliances that are top-tier right now. If the alliance sizes goes up by a bunch, that will probably just mean mergers of the super alliances, making it even harder to get 1st place for anybody but the super-duper alliances.

Yeah that would be my fear of mergers.... and would suck to pay for the 20th slot on one alliance then have to buy the 30th slot on another lol. That of course would be your penalty for jumping ship unless the alliance devolved out from under you.

Unknown

Nemek wrote:

If the alliance sizes goes up by a bunch, that will probably just mean mergers of the super alliances, making it even harder to get 1st place for anybody but the super-duper alliances.

I cringe at the thought of everyone in a 20 man alliance jumping ship for an Über alliance all at once letting the old alliance disappear into the ether

Unknown

Cryptobrancus wrote:

Nemek wrote:

If the alliance sizes goes up by a bunch, that will probably just mean mergers of the super alliances, making it even harder to get 1st place for anybody but the super-duper alliances.

I cringe at the thought of everyone in a 20 man alliance jumping ship for an Über alliance all at once letting the old alliance disappear into the ether

I think the top 5-10 would be mostly fine cept for the members that *.*.*.*.*.* will poach from other top alliances.
I made that anonymous enough right?

But in all seriousness i think It'l likely be the mid to lower tier alliances that will see the highest amounts of turnover.

Unknown

First of all, those alliances that made roster requirements a big part of their initial recruitment made a miscalculation, plain and simple. When we started DjangoUnbuffed, we assumed that MMR and Scaling would even the playing field for our members no matter what stage their roster was in. We really looked for two things. How much fun is this person to hang out with, and how dedicated to the game are they. I presume that more and more alliances are going to switch to this method, because roster strength is almost irrelevant. The only reason we looked at someone's roster and the only reason anyone should is to make sure that a person has intelligently spent their ISO (i.e. is Moonstone their highest level character? Or do they recognize what a synergistic one star team looks like?). I think alliances are going to continue to grow stronger across the board and ones that we don't recognize now will continue to push to the top of the leaderboards, because they will be put together more intelligently and fledgling alliances will learn lessons from every event.

Secondly, alliances are a community endeavor. Searching for open alliances is certainly not yet easy, but I'm sure that will be improved, but even then more invested and more clever players will have the advantage. If a person loves this game, they should find their way here eventually. Online communities for specific games are commonplace, and most gamers learn how to find the Minecraft wiki or planetHalflife, or what have you. If someone can't find a community from which to draw an alliance they will always be at a disadvantage in any game. When someone clicks on the alliance leaderboards and wonders how it is possible for these top-tier alliances to have accumulated membership and they have no natural inclination to seek out the answer, well, I have little sympathy.

And lastly, this is a long term deal. Alliance functionality is not even nearly complete. Even if the game is now in "Launch" edition, the alliance portion still has yet to be fully developed. And more alliances are being created and expanding every day. I think it's too early to say alliances will kill the game. Shield and the rest of us will have to stay on top of our games to continue to compete as more and better alliances start coming online in the upcoming weeks and months.

Unknown

MTGOFerret wrote:

And truth be told the only people who should be in 5 person alliances are newer players. D3 has been giving out plenty of HP in which that if players save it up the first few slots are not hard at all to obtain.

Also with that said if you have a group of friends who have been playing together for awhile then it shouldn't be hard at all to pool a few dollars each and expand the alliance to a reasonable size if not max.

Yes I understand free to play vs pay to win act but there have been several alliances already who have proven you can have a full 20 from HP given

I've been playing for 4+ months and am part of a 5 player alliance (that has won nothing). It's not as if you can just jump right into a large alliance of 20 people. Hero Points aren't just handed out that often, you have to grind to earn them most times and they are used up very quickly to open new roster slots (especially when they release new characters every 1-2 weeks) and to shield yourself in PvP events.

Unknown

Cryptobrancus wrote:

Nemek wrote:

If the alliance sizes goes up by a bunch, that will probably just mean mergers of the super alliances, making it even harder to get 1st place for anybody but the super-duper alliances.

I cringe at the thought of everyone in a 20 man alliance jumping ship for an Über alliance all at once letting the old alliance disappear into the ether

Shango-D.

(We have to include the letter D, of course).

Edit: I'm just kidding, Ferret and all. Django is not going away, ever, I hope.

Unknown

dlaw008 wrote:

<snip> TLDR

*Slaps Dlaw with a trout*
How dare you totally forget Scavengers and Ace of blades, you donkey!
As for platypus guild..hmm yeah I aint worried about them either

MikeHock wrote:

MTGOFerret wrote:

And truth be told the only people who should be in 5 person alliances are newer players. D3 has been giving out plenty of HP in which that if players save it up the first few slots are not hard at all to obtain.

Also with that said if you have a group of friends who have been playing together for awhile then it shouldn't be hard at all to pool a few dollars each and expand the alliance to a reasonable size if not max.

Yes I understand free to play vs pay to win act but there have been several alliances already who have proven you can have a full 20 from HP given

I've been playing for 4+ months and am part of a 5 player alliance (that has won nothing). It's not as if you can just jump right into a large alliance of 20 people. Hero Points aren't just handed out that often, you have to grind to earn them most times and they are used up very quickly to open new roster slots (especially when they release new characters every 1-2 weeks) and to shield yourself in PvP events.

Um dunno what to tell ya. Even without being in Django I've made plenty of HP. Infact before alliances were a thing i spent 800 HP I had banked on the *packs to convert them into ISO.
And had what was IT Dlaw 1650 or so HP banked as i joined up with ya'll?
For reference in on Day 114 myself

Unknown

MTGOFerret wrote:

Um dunno what to tell ya. Even without being in Django I've made plenty of HP. Infact before alliances were a thing i spent 800 HP I had banked on the *packs to convert them into ISO.
And had what was IT Dlaw 1650 or so HP banked as i joined up with ya'll?
For reference in on Day 114 myself

To be fair, even with the change to standard tokens, the rewards changes have been making HP much scarcer for players working their way from low to mid tier

Unknown

gamar wrote:

MTGOFerret wrote:

Um dunno what to tell ya. Even without being in Django I've made plenty of HP. Infact before alliances were a thing i spent 800 HP I had banked on the *packs to convert them into ISO.
And had what was IT Dlaw 1650 or so HP banked as i joined up with ya'll?
For reference in on Day 114 myself

To be fair, even with the change to standard tokens, the rewards changes have been making HP much scarcer for players working their way from low to mid tier

I'm pretty sure that has alot more to do with the lack of 2* rewards then the HP given out.
Under the current system getting OBW max covers out has got to be a kick in the pants

HailMary

MikeHock wrote:

I've been playing for 4+ months and am part of a 5 player alliance (that has won nothing). It's not as if you can just jump right into a large alliance of 20 people. Hero Points aren't just handed out that often, you have to grind to earn them most times and they are used up very quickly to open new roster slots (especially when they release new characters every 1-2 weeks) and to shield yourself in PvP events.

I'm on Day 73, and I'm a completely F2P player.

I definitely hear ya on the "grind, then desperately spend on roster slots" HP situation. I was there, myself. However, once I hit ~28 roster slots, I found that I was no longer clawing for more roster space (I throw away covers for **** chars). I was still grinding for HP, but they didn't need to immediately go to roster slots just to keep up with my cover acquisitions. Even before the very first Alliance rewards dropped, I'd already saved up a few hundred HP. By the time dlaw generously expanded DjangoUnbuffed to 20 member slots (several days after that first event), I'd (somehow) stocked up 900 HP towards contributing a member slot.

Also, the first and only time I shielded was in the first Alliance PvP event, and that was just because I forgot the top tier didn't give out three covers anymore, I knew I was going to be AFK for a couple of hours at the end, and scoring thresholds are unusually high due to alliance competition excitement. Even if I didn't shield, I'd've most likely gotten the two cover rewards (just with a bit less Iso). I've never felt the need to shield in PvP for top 10 placement. Now, minus the Alliance first-place 500 HP reward, I have 775 HP stored up, and enough slots for everyone. Without any Alliance HP rewards, I'm guessing that I'd be at maybe 375 HP? I'm still F2P. I still abhor shielding. I still place pretty well in PvP.

Unknown

MTGOFerret wrote:

I'm pretty sure that has alot more to do with the lack of 2* rewards then the HP given out.
Under the current system getting OBW max covers out has got to be a kick in the pants

I'm pretty sure the 2* reward structure was changed because they give out so many recruit tokens now that new players develop their 2* rosters through tokens more so then winning them.

Unknown

Skyedyne wrote:

In the true essence of it, this does become pay to win now. From what I have read of the larger alliances, securing a spot on the roster means spending the 500 to open the next slot. So, that now becomes a 500 hp purchase of a guaranteed cover, typically a 3* cover (worth 1250 hp), every time.

For the record the 6th slot costs 600. And the 20th costs 2000. It takes almost 20k to open all the slots.

(And it's safe bet the 20 member cap will go to 25 or 30 within a few months.)

Unknown

Tarquos wrote:

Well having just been booted from a 20/20 alliance after offering on day 1 to buy my slot, I have to say it's harder than people make out to get into a top 100. There's no reasonable way to search, and the threads in alliance never update when full, and I'm seeing zero response to players making the 3* transition in the solo player thread.

Then again, I'm still sore from being booted after a week grinding my **** off for blue CPt and being denied black hulk, so take what I'm saying however you please.

You can start your own alliance and collect up the stray fellers. Just like most of the other alliances would not be there if their original captain does not put down the seed. (I.e. for the scAvengers Emeryt did some serious effort in the initial phase and with Mog shelled out 10k for 15 slots. It started to gain requests -- a flood of them really only AFTER appearing in the top10 list.)

Unknown

HailMary wrote:

MikeHock wrote:

I've been playing for 4+ months and am part of a 5 player alliance (that has won nothing). It's not as if you can just jump right into a large alliance of 20 people. Hero Points aren't just handed out that often, you have to grind to earn them most times and they are used up very quickly to open new roster slots (especially when they release new characters every 1-2 weeks) and to shield yourself in PvP events.

I'm on Day 73, and I'm a completely F2P player.

I definitely hear ya on the "grind, then desperately spend on roster slots" HP situation. I was there, myself. However, once I hit ~28 roster slots, I found that I was no longer clawing for more roster space (I throw away covers for **** chars). I was still grinding for HP, but they didn't need to immediately go to roster slots just to keep up with my cover acquisitions. Even before the very first Alliance rewards dropped, I'd already saved up a few hundred HP. By the time dlaw generously expanded DjangoUnbuffed to 20 member slots (several days after that first event), I'd (somehow) stocked up 900 HP towards contributing a member slot.

Also, the first and only time I shielded was in the first Alliance PvP event, and that was just because I forgot the top tier didn't give out three covers anymore, I knew I was going to be AFK for a couple of hours at the end, and scoring thresholds are unusually high due to alliance competition excitement. Even if I didn't shield, I'd've most likely gotten the two cover rewards (just with a bit less Iso). I've never felt the need to shield in PvP for top 10 placement. Now, minus the Alliance first-place 500 HP reward, I have 775 HP stored up, and enough slots for everyone. Without any Alliance HP rewards, I'm guessing that I'd be at maybe 375 HP? I'm still F2P. I still abhor shielding. I still place pretty well in PvP.

I have about 800 Hero Points and I plan to mostly use them to shield in PvP events that I offer covers I need. I had never used shields up until a month ago, but there is no way I'd have been able to stay within the top 50 in recent events that offered Patch, Psycklock (however you spell her name) and Black Panther. Now that one cover is reserved as an alliance reward, the grind is worth less and I'm not going to invest as much time as I used to.

Unknown

pasa_ wrote:

Skyedyne wrote:

In the true essence of it, this does become pay to win now. From what I have read of the larger alliances, securing a spot on the roster means spending the 500 to open the next slot. So, that now becomes a 500 hp purchase of a guaranteed cover, typically a 3* cover (worth 1250 hp), every time.

For the record the 6th slot costs 600. And the 20th costs 2000. It takes almost 20k to open all the slots.

(And it's safe bet the 20 member cap will go to 25 or 30 within a few months.)

Oddly enough i really do hope so because it sucks telling friends that they cant join. In-fact Dlaw recently had that exact thing happen and I can imagine he felt about out it.

HailMary

dlaw008 wrote:

First of all, those alliances that made roster requirements a big part of their initial recruitment made a miscalculation, plain and simple. When we started DjangoUnbuffed, we assumed that MMR and Scaling would even the playing field for our members no matter what stage their roster was in. We really looked for two things. How much fun is this person to hang out with, and how dedicated to the game are they. I presume that more and more alliances are going to switch to this method, because roster strength is almost irrelevant. The only reason we looked at someone's roster and the only reason anyone should is to make sure that a person has intelligently spent their ISO (i.e. is Moonstone their highest level character? Or do they recognize what a synergistic one star team looks like?).

This, absolutely. In geekier terms, I was honestly puzzled by alliances that were recruiting solely based upon absolute strength as opposed to first-derivative strength. Quietly puzzled, because I was sure that 90% of them were misprioritizing and they're technically the competition, but puzzled, nonetheless.

P.S. - For some reason, the forums persistently prevent me from thumbing you up, dlaw, and have been doing so for at least a week. It's weird.