Alliance qualifications: roster strength or activity?

Spider-man 6234

Here is something I've been wondering about; what do the top alliances look for? Is it purely roster strength or is it activity? Or is it a combination of both? I am currently a 2* switching to 3* but I am consistently hitting 800 points in pvp while also ranking top 50 or higher in pve events. The two alliances I've been in have done well but one stressed roster strength while the other was more focused on activity. What does yours look for?

Unknown

Points is all that matter. Currently no way to indicate it other than reputation and/or roster strength. So it's less about having a strong roster for the sake of a strong roster rather a strong roster allows for higher points.

NorthernPolarity

Points should be the only requirement that your alliance should care about as that's the only thing that will directly impact your alliance's performance. High leveled/flexible rosters tend to have the ability to score more points, so it's a generally accepted heuristic for that. Activity is also directly related to points since if you aren't playing, you aren't getting any points.

Unknown

Yes, it's all about points. Now, various alliances can look for other things, like your personality, your age, gender, etc....but if you are talking about what matters the most from a purely gameplay perspective, it's only and all about the points.

Currently ranking is based on the combined score of all teammates combined. This makes it easy, because those who score the most points, win. The more you score, the more valuable you are to your alliance, and the more attractive you are to being recruited.

Someone with a 2* roster who consistently scores 800+ points in PvP events and ranks at the top in PvE events is more "valuable" to an alliance than someone with a maxxed out 3* 141 roster who only occasionally plays or doesn't score highly.

The caveat to this though.....is the person with the 2* roster who is going to eventually transition to a 3* roster is going to eventually hit a MMR wall and not be able to score as highly. So even though he/she may score 800s now, unless he/she can get their roster up to snuff, their score will degrade and suffer, whereas the person with the solid 3* roster will almost always be competitive if they choose to be so.

Dormammu

When I set up MakeMineMarvel I didn't care who joined. It was first-come, first-serve. Then I spent real cash to max out the roster slots for more beginning/mid-tier players, which hopefully helps them get some good covers/ISO/HP they wouldn't normally be able to get on their own.

I think alliances are just good fun - no need to be hyper-competitive. (Not that I begrudge the alliances who are.) So far this lazy approach has worked well, we've placed decently and gotten some nice rewards.

Unknown

As far as "applying" to an alliance, roster strength is important unless it is a forum alliance and people know you. After R50 hits and we get to see how people do in events, that is when points and participation will count more. The honor system is an awkward way of managing things.

Unknown

Good point Dormammu, and I want to re-iterate that point as well.

I'm in Retribution, which sounds like your MakeMineMarvel. We are a 20-person alliance, and we do reasonably well in all events. It's a good balance between being competitive and having fun. Lord Will has done a great job running the show.

Coming from an ultra-competitive guild in World of Warcraft, I can tell you like others who have experienced it that sometimes it can turn into something that seems like a job. When we used to raid (those who can remember back to 40-man raids), it will take a great deal of coordination, and your presence online was practically mandatory, which made it stressful. There was a lot of churn (people joining and leaving) because that level of dedication to a video game was not productive for real life, as I and others discovered.

So play MPQ as you will, nothing wrong with being super-competitive, but there are plenty of great alliances out there where you can play at your own speed, have fun, and still get great rewards.

DecoyDuck

Given the choice, I'd favor activity. Even the strongest roster, if not played, will not contribute to the alliance. I also believe some roster diversity is also valuable in an alliance. With the current MMR guides in place, that gives every ACTIVE player a chance to do well in their respective MMR/roster levels.

Spider-man 6234

Mizake wrote:

Yes, it's all about points. Now, various alliances can look for other things, like your personality, your age, gender, etc....but if you are talking about what matters the most from a purely gameplay perspective, it's only and all about the points.

Currently ranking is based on the combined score of all teammates combined. This makes it easy, because those who score the most points, win. The more you score, the more valuable you are to your alliance, and the more attractive you are to being recruited.

Someone with a 2* roster who consistently scores 800+ points in PvP events and ranks at the top in PvE events is more "valuable" to an alliance than someone with a maxxed out 3* 141 roster who only occasionally plays or doesn't score highly.

The caveat to this though.....is the person with the 2* roster who is going to eventually transition to a 3* roster is going to eventually hit a MMR wall and not be able to score as highly. So even though he/she may score 800s now, unless he/she can get their roster up to snuff, their score will degrade and suffer, whereas the person with the solid 3* roster will almost always be competitive if they choose to be so.

I definitely here what your saying. I have started running into that wall and only with some tanking in shield training and LR have I been able to keep my mmr down. It definitely is discouraging when I skip through five shield or django or ace of blades or anyone who has those high lvled up characters, in a row. It will definetly help when I finally get those three* I'm lvling up right now to a usable lvl.

TheHueyFreeman

Just wanna point out that I had posted my roster and days at first without finding an alliance. As soon as I let people know the point totals I get, thats when I was approached by multiple groups.

If I was in charge of recruiting (which I'm not and don't want to be), I would prioritize in this order..

1. PvP points
- PvE points can't be standardized well due to rubberbanding, differing totals, and scaling.

2. Activity
- Only to make sure you don't quit on us and can communicate with the rest of us

3. Roster
- Less important if the other 2 are good but want to see some decent characters in there.

Spider-man 6234

TheHueyFreeman wrote:

Just wanna point out that I had posted my roster and days at first without finding an alliance. As soon as I let people know the point totals I get, thats when I was approached by multiple groups.

If I was in charge of recruiting (which I'm not and don't want to be), I would prioritize in this order..

1. PvP points
- PvE points can't be standardized well due to rubberbanding, differing totals, and scaling.

2. Activity
- Only to make sure you don't quit on us and can communicate with the rest of us

3. Roster
- Less important if the other 2 are good but want to see some decent characters in there.

I think you could add a fourth for your alliance.

4. What lvl is your patch at?

Unknown

Dormammu wrote:

When I set up MakeMineMarvel I didn't care who joined. It was first-come, first-serve. Then I spent real cash to max out the roster slots for more beginning/mid-tier players, which hopefully helps them get some good covers/ISO/HP they wouldn't normally be able to get on their own.

I think alliances are just good fun - no need to be hyper-competitive. (Not that I begrudge the alliances who are.) So far this lazy approach has worked well, we've placed decently and gotten some nice rewards.

That is the Howlers almost verbatim; I fronted the entire cost, first come first serve. A lot of newer players, and not a whole lot maxed, either 2* or 3* - and yet the Howlers have been in the top 50 for the last several events. I would imagine this is also a result of the devs working to "balance" things out so the newer players can compete at the same level as the veterans.

that, and "WAH-HOO!" is simply an intimidating battle cry cleverly crafted to make foes quake in their boots.

mischiefmaker

I wouldn't call mine a "top alliance" but I did almost all the recruiting so I'll answer the question anyway. In order of importance:

Requirements
1. Don't be a jerk. I don't care if someone scores a thousand points every tournament; I don't want to be associated with people who are jerks.

2. Have the same values as the rest of the organization. If we all want to be casual, and you're hardcore, eventually we're going to part ways, and it may not be pleasant; either way it's no way to build for the long term.

3. Contribute. I don't expect anyone to carry the team but I also don't expect anyone to freeload. Pull your weight, whether that means chipping in for a roster slot or getting as many points as you can with the roster and time that you have. Also, be part of the discussion thread.

Nice to have
1. Sociability. If we're going to spend time and effort together, I prefer to spend it with people I like and want to talk to.

2. Talent, as represented by either a high-level roster or consistently high scores in PvP

A high-level roster is a proxy for people who are willing to put in time and/or money. High scores in PvP generally represent people who are willing to put in effort and/or understand game mechanics well. Both tend to be sustainable. I don't value high scores in PvE as much as they tend to be achievable by people willing to grind, which doesn't translate to PvP very well.

Not to get all meta on anyone, but this is how I would recruit for any other organization too.

Unknown

Since I seem to be The Laboratory's recruiter I'll throw my two cents in.

Phase 1 At first it seemed like warm bodies were what we wanted. Anyone with any points was better than no one. After trying out public life we had a number of people jumping in and out and I wouldn't even remember their names now. Luckily those who stayed seem like good people. Not all of them are very talkative though
Phase 2 Recruit exclusively from the forums. If someone can't be bothered to come say hi at least once I didn't want them.
Phase 3 Was take in anyone who could offer opening more slots. It wasn't a requirement but if we had three people in line and one offered to open the next slot, that person got the spot.
Phase 4 I suppose in the future if we do max out our size and have people leave we can look at things like activity or points or rosters but I have no intention of kicking anyone out for anything like that. Especially if they contributed to our expansion.

We are already doing better than I imagined we might, and my only hope is that if someone does stop playing entirely that they have the courtesy to let us know.

HailMary

I handled much of Django's recruitment, so here's a quick rundown:
1. Activity >> roster strength. Roster strength is useful simply to augment activity. Hint: roster composition can tell you a lot more about a player than simply brute strength.
2. Recruit from the forums. Django motto #2: "Having fun kicks ****." As you can tell from our 80+ page alliance chat, we shoot the breeze a lot.

We got lucky, though. We started as four guys who said to a fifth guy "Yo, cool name, broseph." We happen to be doing rather well.

Spider-man 6234 wrote:

I definitely here what your saying. I have started running into that wall and only with some tanking in shield training and LR have I been able to keep my mmr down. It definitely is discouraging when I skip through five shield or django or ace of blades or anyone who has those high lvled up characters, in a row. It will definetly help when I finally get those three* I'm lvling up right now to a usable lvl.

As a sidenote: you've just had bad luck/MMR running into the Djangoliers that you did. Django runs the gamut from early 2*->3* to multi-L141. It's a surprisingly even distribution, actually.

Colognoisseur

I was a lurker on the forums until I saw alliances were being formed. LordWill of Retribution offered me a spot and I took it. He asked early on did we want rosters or activity as we expanded and we pretty unanimously said activity. Active players=point scorers and we seem to be doing fine with that.
I am also glad we aren't resorting to spread sheets to determine whether a player is contributing enough. IMO the only reason one should be kicked from our alliance is if they stop playing.

As a lurker and lone wolf for most of my MPQ days I just have to say I have enjoyed having a team to be a part of and contribute to and I am enjoying this added part of the game a lot more than I thought I would. Thank to LordWill and the rest of my Retribution teammates for giving me that.......and to the other teams to give me something to strive for with my teammates.

Unknown

HailMary wrote:

I handled much of Django's recruitment, so here's a quick rundown:
1. Activity >> roster strength. Roster strength is useful simply to augment activity. Hint: roster composition can tell you a lot more about a player than simply brute strength.
2. Recruit from the forums. Django motto #2: "Having fun kicks ****." As you can tell from our 80+ page alliance chat, we shoot the breeze a lot.

We got lucky, though. We started as four guys who said to a fifth guy "Yo, cool name, broseph." We happen to be doing rather well.

You don't have to worry about any more recruiting, HailMary. We all decided your roster is not up to snuff, so you're being kicked. Also, we don't like you.

HailMary

dlaw008 wrote:

You don't have to worry about any more recruiting, HailMary. We all decided your roster is not up to snuff, so you're being kicked. Also, we don't like you.

Phew. That's a load off my chest.

... wait a minute.

LordWill

Colognoisseur wrote:

I was a lurker on the forums until I saw alliances were being formed. LordWill of Retribution offered me a spot and I took it. He asked early on did we want rosters or activity as we expanded and we pretty unanimously said activity. Active players=point scorers and we seem to be doing fine with that.
I am also glad we aren't resorting to spread sheets to determine whether a player is contributing enough. IMO the only reason one should be kicked from our alliance is if they stop playing.

As a lurker and lone wolf for most of my MPQ days I just have to say I have enjoyed having a team to be a part of and contribute to and I am enjoying this added part of the game a lot more than I thought I would. Thank to LordWill and the rest of my Retribution teammates for giving me that.......and to the other teams to give me something to strive for with my teammates.

You are most welcome! I am really enjoying the alliance part of the game as well. I think the game really did need that little bit of extra fun...

When I put together our alliance, I asked the group what they thought and it was activity that won out. So you will see players from all levels in our alliance.

In the end, it really is about the points and activity, roster strength will come in time.

I'm am very honored and grateful we have such a great group of people in our alliance.

Unknown

HailMary wrote:

I handled much of Django's recruitment, so here's a quick rundown:
1. Activity >> roster strength. Roster strength is useful simply to augment activity. Hint: roster composition can tell you a lot more about a player than simply brute strength.
2. Recruit from the forums. Django motto #2: "Having fun kicks ****." As you can tell from our 80+ page alliance chat, we shoot the breeze a lot.

We got lucky, though. We started as four guys who said to a fifth guy "Yo, cool name, broseph." We happen to be doing rather well.

Spider-man 6234 wrote:

I definitely here what your saying. I have started running into that wall and only with some tanking in shield training and LR have I been able to keep my mmr down. It definitely is discouraging when I skip through five shield or django or ace of blades or anyone who has those high lvled up characters, in a row. It will definetly help when I finally get those three* I'm lvling up right now to a usable lvl.

As a sidenote: you've just had bad luck/MMR running into the Djangoliers that you did. Django runs the gamut from early 2*->3* to multi-L141. It's a surprisingly even distribution, actually.

For those of you that don't know:

Django motto #1 - It doesn't matter what the topic is, you're right, and HailMary is wrong.

Unknown

At SteamSlackers, we are still growing, so the number one way of getting in is paying for your spot. Getting to the 3* covers in PVP requires either everyone is extremely dedicated, or having at least 18 people that are active.

For open spots, we just hope for people that are active, and the best way to see that someone is active is recent covers. If you have 4 Cap covers and 4 lazy thor covers, you are definitely going to contribute, so there's no reason not to sign you up.