Base Alliance Rank on the 5 Top Players

Zifna

I think basing alliance rank on the rating of the five highest-scoring players in an alliance would be a very positive move for this game. Allow me to convince you. Here are some of the positives:

1. Reduces "Pay2Win" - This puts an no-heropoint alliance into competition (technically) for the top slot. It's likely that most of the very top teams will remain in the top, but it's not technically NECESSARY to pay heropoints to win.

2. Increases competitiveness - It's hard to say how many alliances there are with 20 active players right now, but it's not a lot. This change would take it from there being dozens of teams with a realistic shot at the top 10 to being hundreds of teams with a shot.

3. Rewards success - Many people have commented how the average per-player score of many of the alliances is very low. This move would ensure that to be in the top scores overall, you'd need to have some members at or near the tops of their brackets. You couldn't group a bunch of low-achieving players together and beat out a small group of dedicated players.

4. Reduces witch-hunting - If you read the forums, you see all kinds of Commanders concerned about whether everyone in their alliance is pulling their weight. They regularly communicate point totals or even ask players to leave temporarily and see how the alliance score changes to verify. Even if showing points is automated, that wouldn't fix this problem - it just creates bad feeling if everyone is constantly thinking about kicking their "dead weight"

5. Reduces burn-out - Currently, there's pressure on anyone in any alliance to get the highest amount of points possible in any alliance event. Even if you personally don't care about a particular reward, you will be letting your teammates down if you don't help them get it. With this system, larger alliances can comfortably allow players to sit out events they're not interested in without being overly hurt by it.

6. Still rewards large alliances, but more moderately - Stuck with a L30 Hood in a Hood event? It's going to be tough to perform well, but in a small alliance your lackluster score will count anyway. A large alliance likely has five other people who can pull in top scores. Trying to break into the top five at the end, but instead get blasted with a few attacks for -60 points? No problem in a large alliance - someone else's high score will count instead of yours. A small alliance just loses 60 points.


Agree? Disagree? Chime in.

Unknown

Basing on top 5 is even more unfair because then you'd just have 15 guys ride on the effort of 5 guys. People might not even bother playing if they know there's no way they'll ever score higher than the 5 crazies on your own alliance.

mischiefmaker

Yeah, what Phantron said.

Also, what is the incentive to spend hero points/money on increasing alliance size?

Zifna

Phantron wrote:

People might not even bother playing if they know there's no way they'll ever score higher than the 5 crazies on your own alliance.

There are still individual ranking rewards so... that seems silly.

Still, if that's the concern, other people have suggested a "minimum participation level" in any given event to be eligible for alliance rewards, and that doesn't seem ridiculous. If that's the only concern, it seems like an easy fix.

Zifna

mischiefmaker wrote:

Also, what is the incentive to spend hero points/money on increasing alliance size?

When alliances are all put on an equal footing, individual point differences will matter much more. Depending on who is boosted in an event and my individual luck and time commitment, I could score as high as 760 points or as low as 460.

If you have two alliances of players of equal skill, one of which has 5 players and the other of which has 20, it will be very rare for the 5-person alliance to win. It will always be technically possible for them to win, but the 20-person alliance will place first probably 9 times out of 10 at least.

Also, the 5-person alliance either has to pick and choose its events, or play CONSTANTLY at an extremely high level of dedication... not feasible for most people.

Unknown

This suggestion negates some LARGE HP expenditures from the capped alliances. This move would burn them so hard, they might think they got the new Johnny covers early.

(OK, that was really bad, I Super-appologize everyone )

Anyway I think the 1st idea being thrown about here is the better one: Bracket the Alliance Rewards.

I think, though, the breakdown should be like another pro-playing game's divisions:
7 and under
8 to 14
15 and up

This will need adjusting if the cap at 20 changes, but it's a good starting point.

Unknown

The only way I can see top 5 would be if it's based on top 5 ranking placement, since there's enuogh uncertainty on the brackets that you want to have a bigger alliance in case all your crazies got placed in a tough bracket (or against themselves) but still gives a reasonable shot for a strong, small alliance to do, and I guess ties would go to your 6th/7th/etc member (and if you don't have one you just lose) in case there are multiple alliances finishing with 1/1/1/1/1.

Unknown

IHatePVP wrote:

This suggestion negates some LARGE HP expenditures from the capped alliances. This move would burn them so hard, they might think they got the new Johnny covers early.

(OK, that was really bad, I Super-appologize everyone )

Anyway I think the 1st idea being thrown about here is the better one: Bracket the Alliance Rewards.

I think, though, the breakdown should be like another pro-playing game's divisions:
7 and under
8 to 14
15 and up

This will need adjusting if the cap at 20 changes, but it's a good starting point.

But that'd make life miserable for a 15 man alliance, which is actually pretty good right now. If you're not the top of your 'weight' class, so to speak, you're still having a hard time.

Zifna

IHatePVP wrote:

This suggestion negates some LARGE HP expenditures from the capped alliances. This move would burn them so hard, they might think they got the new Johnny covers early.

I honestly don't think it would; I invite D3 to run the numbers. I think they'd find that the Top 10 alliances would shift in rank only slightly with such a change. The top players belong to these groups and they're all going to end up near the top regardless. This would only solidify SHIELD's lead in PvP, for example.

Where do I expect this to make a difference? In the ranks from around 50 to 500.

I hope that it will alter the landscape there such that if you have an alliance of players who are in the top 5 in their pools, they can rely on likely earning a third cover. Right now this isn't the case in the slightest and I see that as a serious flaw.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

...

But that'd make life miserable for a 15 man alliance, which is actually pretty good right now. If you're not the top of your 'weight' class, so to speak, you're still having a hard time.

Well, 8-man is also screwed, too. The #s are not the main point, only that the forum consensus is Alliance Rewards need some [edit] changes.

Aw ****, the forum doesn't allow Strikethrough text. Totally face-planted my joke..

Unknown

Zifna wrote:

IHatePVP wrote:

I hope that it will alter the landscape there such that if you have an alliance of players who are in the top 5 in their pools, they can rely on likely earning a third cover. Right now this isn't the case in the slightest and I see that as a serious flaw.

I understand your concerns, but your solution would only cause you to fall even further away from getting that 3rd cover.

Using your suggestion, there is *zero* incentive for a well-run 5-man team to take on more members. At most maybe 6-7 members in case one goes on vacation. Anything beyond that is dead weight.

So what would happen is the current larger alliances may fracture, so where you once had all 20 members in 1 alliance taking the top spot, they maybe split into 3 alliances. And all 3 would still place very highly.

So your current 5-man guild may or may not fair any better, depending on how deep the rewards go. If all the big guilds broke into a bunch of smaller guilds, you are more likely to fall behind in the rankings. As it stands, most of the people who play a lot are concentrated in the top 20 alliances or so.

I'm not saying there shouldn't be another way about it, it would be nice to somehow see some of the smaller guilds have a chance, but your suggestion, imo, would not solve the problem.

Unknown

i like the idea, but putting a weighted % on the top 5-10 players would be better imo.

otherwise there's really no reason to spend HP on slots.

Unknown

Mizake wrote:

...

So what would happen is the current larger alliances may fracture, so where you once had all 20 members in 1 alliance taking the top spot, they maybe split into 3 alliances. And all 3 would still place very highly.

So your current 5-man guild may or may not fair any better, depending on how deep the rewards go. If all the big guilds broke into a bunch of smaller guilds, you are more likely to fall behind in the rankings. As it stands, most of the people who play a lot are concentrated in the top 20 alliances or so.
...

I don't see how brackets based on size would cause the capped Alliances to split; they already spent the HP. Why vacate the slots they bought to open?

Also, see above:

IHatePVP wrote:

...
The #s are not the main point, only that the forum consensus is Alliance Rewards need some [edit] changes.
...

Unknown

If the rank is based on Top 5 players and the 6-20 ranks don't count, the 6-20 guys would feel kinda useless that they aren't contributing at all. I think they want the alliances to feel like a "everyone is pitching in" sort of thing

I can see a solution that alleviates, but doesn't eliminate the problem. Top 5 is counted fully, then 6-20 is weighted to be worth less points. So say... the #6 guy may have 0.8 of his score contributing to alliance rank and the #20 guy may contribute 0.1 of his score.

It's still p2w, having a bigger alliance will ALWAYS be advantageous, but it should help out in the theoretical situation where 5 top tier guys lose to 20 guys that get 300 points each. The 20 guys will still have a big advantage, but the 5 guys don't need to average 1200 points to compete

Unknown

I think it was suggested a while back but surely the equation can have some middle ground.

Currently a 5 man alliance needs to perform at 200% compared to a 10 man alliance, 300% for 15, and 400% of a 20 man alliance's average.

Would it be game breaking if those numbers were instead 150%, 225%, and 300%?

Clearly still a huge advantage but if a 20 man alliance only has an average of 200 (yes, I know, purely hypothetical) should they not deserve to be beaten by a 5 man team who averaged 700+

Size matters, and it should. But should it trump performance entirely or should performance only matter between similarly sized alliances as it is now?

I would love to see a rockstar 5 man team take on disorganized size 15 alliances, and crazy awesome 15 man alliances take on those who feel safe at size 20.

Unknown

The form Alliances have taken here is really interesting to me

In almost every game I know of with Alliances of this type, the POINT of the Alliance is to help new players along - people who just want to loot the Alliance armory and not contribute aren't generally welcome, but it's understood that the Alliance is "investing" in newbies who will then develop and contribute.

I know we've got a couple of Alliances on the forum who do a rotating slot thing to do this, but over half the posts in this thread are worrying about Alliance members "coasting on the high performers"

I'm not saying that's a "wrong" way to do Alliances, just that it's interesting how differently alliances are viewed here

Unknown

How about a rank based on score average within an alliance, with small bonuses if there are more players in the alliance.

Unknown

Mizake wrote:

Using your suggestion, there is *zero* incentive for a well-run 5-man team to take on more members. At most maybe 6-7 members in case one goes on vacation. Anything beyond that is dead weight.

Nah, I think this will happen:

5. Reduces burn-out - Currently, there's pressure on anyone in any alliance to get the highest amount of points possible in any alliance event. Even if you personally don't care about a particular reward, you will be letting your teammates down if you don't help them get it. With this system, larger alliances can comfortably allow players to sit out events they're not interested in without being overly hurt by it.

Although I confess, I'm envisioning a scenario where a "well-run" alliance of five guys makes 15 alt accounts, have them all join events at the same time, and use the alts to game the system in some way?

Zifna

Mizake wrote:

So what would happen is the current larger alliances may fracture, so where you once had all 20 members in 1 alliance taking the top spot, they maybe split into 3 alliances. And all 3 would still place very highly.

Why would they split? They'd be decreasing their chances of a high score AND increasing the competition at the same time. "Hey guys, we're doing really great together, but we could do only slightly worse if we separated... let's do that"? I'm not seeing it.


As far as Microtom's idea of averaging the score:

Microtom wrote:

How about a rank based on score average within an alliance, with small bonuses if there are more players in the alliance.

That doesn't sound like a good one at all - it would increase the "witch-hunting" currently present and incentivize people to create bad feelings with friends and therefore bad feelings about the game. In my guild is a couple who plays. The wife plays a LOT and has a very respectable roster (top level 100ish?). The husband plays significantly less and I think his top character is 50. If you make it average scores, you are saying "Kick your husband from your alliance." My brother, too, is in our alliance, and he doesn't have much time to play. I bet a lot of players who aren't on forums are allied with friends or relatives. Making the score an average sets up inter-alliance rivalry and is bound to create stress and tension.

Unknown

Although I confess, I'm envisioning a scenario where a "well-run" alliance of five guys makes 15 alt accounts, have them all join events at the same time, and use the alts to game the system in some way?[/quote]

I tried playing on mobile and pc at the same time just 2 accounts, and one ended up being a "take the daily reward" account and that was it. I can't imagine a group of 5 guys playing 4 accounts each, and if some people did pull it off, I say they earned whatever they get, because they have WAYYYYY to much dedication to this game.

snooka

those changes would greatly reduce the covers given out to the players.

just some math:
top 100 alliances each 20 members = 2000 3star covers given out total to the players as alliance rewards
lets suppose the top 100 alliances after those changes would have an average of 10 players = 1000 3star covers given out.

just by global thinking i like "the bigger the alliance the better the chances to get the rewards" aspect more