Overall, I now believe that Alliance Ranking is a good thing

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

There needs to be less barrier to creating 20-man alliances given size still trumps everything else. DjangoUnbuffed would be nowhere competitive for #1 if they have even one less person, for example.

But you guys also have 20. If we had one less person than everybody we could not have won, for sure. If everybody had 19, though, maybe we would have won. Also if everybody had 10. Or 5. Although I'm still of the mindset that the smaller the maximum alliance size, the more likely Shield are to win everything. Their top 5 guys are probably head and shoulders above everyone, no disrespect to the whole of Shield who are all great. I'm not sure that a smaller maximum alliance size really gives more people a chance at the 500 HP prize which seems to be the common contention.

We actually had one guy get married (and start a honeymoon) during the simulator event and at least one more go away on vacation. I know that 5DV had at least klingsor absent during the last leg (although admittedly they dropped a bit). It's a double edged sword, really, because while one could argue that we can't win without 20 people, we could also argue that it took maximum contribution from all 20 people and the organization and leadership thereof.

For those who complain that their alliance is not big enough or strong enough to compete, improve your situation. Find a bigger stronger alliance, or create one. Look what klingsor did. He created and manages 2(!) 20 man alliances. Are you saying that you can't somehow do the same?

_RiO_

Cryptobrancus wrote:

Hopefully next group to get thrown a bone are the mids.

The only way to throw the mids is a bone is to remove scaling, as that's the number 1 factor that is screwing us over consistently. It isn't happening.

Puritas

scaling can be managed, there's plenty of information on how to do it in the tips subforum
I know how painful it is in the meantime, but as example my hard mode enemies rarely went above 130 during this sim

_RiO_

Puritas wrote:

scaling can be managed, there's plenty of information on how to do it in the tips subforum
I know how painful it is in the meantime, but as example my hard mode enemies rarely went above 130 during this sim

Meh. My solution to that is to stop caring: I just stop playing when it happens. Sure, I'll advance slower by throwing a fight. On the flipside, that means a lower incentive for me to invest real money for HP or ISO to make ends meet, as their intake naturally aligns with the reduced intake of new covers or cover upgrades. In the end the only differences that really matter are a reduced blood pressure for myself and reduced income for D3. I consider that a win-win situation.

Ofcourse, I'd like for the game to improve itself to a level where competing would actually be fun again, i.e. , giving mid-tier players a realistically reachable goal and a good progression curve again. And I'll keep campaigning for that every chance I get. But realistically, I've half-consciously resigned myself to the fact that it's not going to happen. This game's jumped onto the monetization gravy train full force and it isn't jumping off for the forseeable future. I get the enjoyment I can out of the game for my love of Puzzle Quest and the Marvel franchise, and that's pretty much it at the moment.

Puritas

or you could just stop relying on obw/spiderman, because that's pretty much the biggest thing that makes scaling unmanageable

Unknown

Cryptobrancus wrote:

Scaling + Rubberbanding = keep low to mid tier players happy

We still have an hour to April 1. scaling indeed pushed nonsense rosters to top but hosed all the mid-tier bigtime. The most recent version improved on that but not considering the uberbuffs the sub tops were dominated by lvl30 rosters with 1-cover boss.

And the combo only helps those who read eddie's PVP guide or figured out the tech themselves (not likely). Those who played naturally mining the 500ISOs in the first round likely scaled themselves out of the event for good.

_RiO_

Puritas wrote:

or you could just stop relying on obw/spiderman, because that's pretty much the biggest thing that makes scaling unmanageable

Yeah, good luck competing against anyone if you get knocked around and knocked out the whole time. You'll spend far too much time regenerating your health, especially if you don't have the luxury of being able to play at multiple times over the day and regenerate health and health-packs inbetween.

You do touch on a good point though; one of the main reasons scaling is broken is because of HP healers. If anything absolutely is top of the list for things that must be done to fix scaling, then it is the fact that scaling needs to take into account total amount of HP damage taken over a match and not just be a ridiculously naive before/after check.

Puritas

they added it in deliberately to stop people from using healers
which is kinda odd but w/e, roll with the punches

I used to rely on healers as much as anyone else, but after the nightmare that was thick as thieves never touched spidey again
for me, burning through health packs while I play is a meager trade-off in return for 1-3 minute matches as opposed to 7-10

I actually let my characters die in PvE on purpose to keep scaling low as possible, and don't have much problem placing top 2 in my subs

also mid-tier players have the slight advantage of being more likely to have put iso into the multitude of ** buffed characters, which have higher hp pools with which to drop your scaling =P

after you drop healers it might take a sub-bracket or two where you're unable to be competitive before things get back to normal for you, but it's 900% worth it in the long run

Unknown

dlaw008 wrote:

Phantron wrote:

There needs to be less barrier to creating 20-man alliances given size still trumps everything else. DjangoUnbuffed would be nowhere competitive for #1 if they have even one less person, for example.

But you guys also have 20. If we had one less person than everybody we could not have won, for sure. If everybody had 19, though, maybe we would have won. ...

That's the whole point, the current formula that just takes the sum of points of members is pretty bad. For play, for social stuff and for about everything on the players side. It only benefits the slot sells.

Different aggregation could allow alliances work with some members living real life without being a drag on the others.

Where big size could still be good benefit but not THAT big.

Unknown

Puritas wrote:

scaling can be managed, there's plenty of information on how to do it in the tips subforum
I know how painful it is in the meantime, but as example my hard mode enemies rarely went above 130 during this sim

A-ha, it can be managed really. If you read the other thread, the guy who wrote that fine manual snapped...
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=5560

And certainly the majority of player never get to those tips.

Unknown

Puritas wrote:

or you could just stop relying on obw/spiderman, because that's pretty much the biggest thing that makes scaling unmanageable

And a player who didn't read the side-note dropped accidentelly by IceIX in some hidden thread will know about that exactly how?

Puritas

mpqjunkie.com

the site with the IceIX tracker for all your MPQ needs

Unknown

Puritas wrote:

they added it in deliberately to stop people from using healers
which is kinda odd but w/e, roll with the punches

I used to rely on healers as much as anyone else, but after the nightmare that was thick as thieves never touched spidey again
for me, burning through health packs while I play is a meager trade-off in return for 1-3 minute matches as opposed to 7-10

I actually let my characters die in PvE on purpose to keep scaling low as possible, and don't have much problem placing top 2 in my subs

also mid-tier players have the slight advantage of being more likely to have put iso into the multitude of ** buffed characters, which have higher hp pools with which to drop your scaling =P

after you drop healers it might take a sub-bracket or two where you're unable to be competitive before things get back to normal for you, but it's 900% worth it in the long run

WOW. Does that description reads like a sensible strategy game?

I wonder if Dune 2 would get anywhere if I had to play it by burning my tanks left and right instead of researching the repair depot ASAP.

Cave the way to win with intentional losses?

Shouldn't a game prefer the good play rather than the lousy one?

Puritas

I never said I liked the system
I said it's not unbeatable and I'm letting him know how to do it

Why are you so upset

also I never said I lose, I said I let a character die
but sacrificing units was never part of any strategy game ever, right?


(edited for clarity of sarcasm)

jojeda654

Puritas wrote:

because sacrificing units was never part of any strategy game ever

Whaaaaaa? Using Petards always made me giggle, especially if I sent a long line of them.

Unknown

Me upset? I never post in forums in that state

Sacrifice -- yeah, as you mention it that fits, like when Agamemnon had to sacrifice his daughter to get winds toward Troy.

Why not just call the spade the bloody shovel: issuing penalty for not losing health in a game is just crazy and pervert. Why not just call it broken design? Especially when so many better alternatives were offered.

Unknown

jojeda654 wrote:

Puritas wrote:

because sacrificing units was never part of any strategy game ever

Whaaaaaa? Using Petards always made me giggle, especially if I sent a long line of them.

Yep, and berserkers and flame-ships and scourges and bomb squads, kamikaze pilots. Any of those resemble anything we're "supposed" to do in MPQ to tank ourself to some manageable state?

We have good examples of sacrifice in game: see Juggs, Ares. On a different line, Patch.

Unknown

I think they are neither good nor bad. They are a huge HP sink which slows players down and may force some players to purchase an offer. Originally I was against them as well, but right now I just don't care. My alliance is doing quite well and we are currently expanding. From a 5 person alliance to 10 and most likely 13 tomorrow.

What I absolutely hate about the alliances though is the lack of management tools and the extreme cost for 15-20 slots. A much better system that distributes the cost to all player would help a lot. If I had designed the system I would allow each player to buy his own slot and not the next slot. What happens now is that a player enters an alliance in a slot that was purchased by the previous player. This means the 20th player enters an alliance for free when the 19th has to pay 2000HP!!!.

A better system would be something like this. Each time a new slot opens the game subtracts 50 HP from each existing member and the rest from the player who is getting approved. So let's assume we have a 10/10 alliance. The 11th member applies for membership and his slot costs 1100 HP. A commander approves him which opens the 11th slot. The cost distribution is the following. All existing members pay 50 HP which is 10x50=500HP and the 11th member pays the remaining 600 HP. The 11th player will eventually be called to pay 50 HP for the remaining 9 members (since the max alliance size is 20). This means the his total membership cost is 600 + 9x50 = 1050 HP. This cost is the same for all other members except the first 5. For example the 20th member would have to pay 2000 - 19x50 = 1050. Now compare this to the membership cost of the founders of the alliance (first 5). Since the first 5 slots are free they would have to pay 15x50 = 750 HP.

Not exactly equal, but a much better distribution of the cost and it makes it easier to slowly expand an alliance, since 50HP is nothing really to pay once every 2-3 days, instead of asking someone to pay 1500 or 2000 HP.

Unknown

It needs to be improved still. I think most of us here are in a top 50 alliance, so it's very easy for us to feel complacent.

Unknown

Alliance ranking just makes sure that, to get all the rewards, we have to all be in big alliances. 5 member alliance nets you very little, regardless of who you play with. 10 people need to get half the points to get to the same rewards. With 20, all you have to hope is that everyone is active, and then you get a bunch of rewards for your ISO investment.

I think it'd be pretty instructive if IceX could use some of his special access to look at the alliance rankings on simulator 2 main, and do some basic analysis on them:

Reward Tier 2
20 players - X alliances
19 players -Y alliences
....

It'd be pretty valuable information, if just so that we have an idea of how many more members an alliance needs to hope for a specific set of rewards.