Alliance Covers Need to be Adjusted Again

Vhailorx

In the most recent PVE release event (Deadpool v. MPQ for Phil Coulson), the maximum progression reward was set at 28k. The #100 alliance averaged 42,517 points across all 20 members. My own alliance finished just outside the top 100, but we were in 64th position when S4 ended.

In total, this means that entire alliances need to average more than 150% of the max progression score, and that more than 1/3 of the top 100 slots turn over in the final few hours with merc'ing. And none of this is especially new, it just happened to affect my alliance this event in a way that clearly illustrates the problem.

This is a horribly inconvenient system for players. It requires alliance commanders to (1) be available right up until the end of each event in case the alliance needs to add a merc, and (2) be sufficiently well connected to the merc'ing community to get mercs on short notice. The system also creates a very significant competitive advantage for those alliances with players who can play or commanders who can recruit mercs at the end of slice 5, since they can add to their scores right up until the end.

Just as the old top 50 covers for 4* releases eventually created too much competitive pressure and had to be changed (with the KP release in spring 2015 iirc), the current alliance cover system is broken and needs to be fixed.

Push alliance covers down to the top 250 alliances; that would reduce the pressure to merc so aggressively at the end of each event. (Alternately, alliance rosters could lock-in for PVE events the way they do for Boss events, but that system has its own problems, namely punishing 19 players if the 20th happens to be unexpectedly detained by rl after joining the event.)

C'mon demi/d3! 4* covers aren't precious treasures to be guarded jealously anymore. You already give out covers faster than you give out iso for more hardcore 4* vets. So throw us players a bone and reduce the level of hassle and inconvenience necessary to play in a competitive alliance.

(Edited to clarify the discussion of competitive advantage)

Crnch73

I was with you except when you said it gives an advantage to a specific slice. That part just isn't true, everyone has the same opportunity to play and add points during their time frame.

But otherwise, yes I agree. They treat every 4* cover like it's precious, they can't be bothered to do anything besides release them... then let the piranhas swarm over the new, shiny character! Not only should new releases be tweaked (or fixed in SCL8 and above), but 4* in general shouldn't be so ridiculously valued.

notamutant

Simple solution would be adjusting shield clearance level 8 rewards for alliance to move to top 125 or 150. Or adding level 9 at that.

Vhailorx

Crnch73 wrote:

I was with you except when you said it gives an advantage to a specific slice. That part just isn't true, everyone has the same opportunity to play and add points during their time frame.

But otherwise, yes I agree. They treat every 4* cover like it's precious, they can't be bothered to do anything besides release them... then let the piranhas swarm over the new, shiny character! Not only should new releases be tweaked (or fixed in SCL8 and above), but 4* in general shouldn't be so ridiculously valued.

Everyone gets the same opportunity to play, but scoring points in the last few hours is more meaningful in terms of alliance scoring just because there is no time left. think of it like scoring at the end of any sporting contest. So to use baseball as an example: a run scored in the 9th inning is worth just as much as a run scored in the 1st inning. But when it comes to determining a winner, the 9th inning run can have a much larger effect on a team's win probability because there are many many fewer opportunities for the other team to counter. In MPQ this means that alliances with active players (and especially active commanders) during the last few hours of an event have a distinct competitive advantage. They can add more points (either via extra grinding, or via merc) to counter any changes on the leaderboards. Meanwhile players in less convenient timezones are fast asleep or in the middle of their work day and unable to respond.

notamutant

Vhailorx wrote:

Crnch73 wrote:

I was with you except when you said it gives an advantage to a specific slice. That part just isn't true, everyone has the same opportunity to play and add points during their time frame.

But otherwise, yes I agree. They treat every 4* cover like it's precious, they can't be bothered to do anything besides release them... then let the piranhas swarm over the new, shiny character! Not only should new releases be tweaked (or fixed in SCL8 and above), but 4* in general shouldn't be so ridiculously valued.

Everyone gets the same opportunity to play, but scoring points in the last few hours is more meaningful in terms of alliance scoring just because there is no time left. think of it like scoring at the end of any sporting contest. So to use baseball as an example: a run scored in the 9th inning is worth just as much as a run scored in the 1st inning. But when it comes to determining a winner, the 9th inning run can have a much larger effect on a team's win probability because there are many many fewer opportunities for the other team to counter. In MPQ this means that alliances with active players (and especially active commanders) during the last few hours of an event have a distinct competitive advantage. They can add more points (either via extra grinding, or via merc) to counter any changes on the leaderboards. Meanwhile players in less convenient timezones are fast asleep or in the middle of their work day and unable to respond.

Your analysis is only correct in regards to the general idea of people still being awake to do swapping. But actually being a player or having players in the last slice is a disadvantage. Try getting a merc to join your alliance ranked 98 because half your alliance is playing last slice. Far easier to get a merc to join a lower scoring alliance that is temporarily higher ranked because everyone is in earlier slices.

Crnch73

Vhailorx wrote:

Crnch73 wrote:

I was with you except when you said it gives an advantage to a specific slice. That part just isn't true, everyone has the same opportunity to play and add points during their time frame.

But otherwise, yes I agree. They treat every 4* cover like it's precious, they can't be bothered to do anything besides release them... then let the piranhas swarm over the new, shiny character! Not only should new releases be tweaked (or fixed in SCL8 and above), but 4* in general shouldn't be so ridiculously valued.

Everyone gets the same opportunity to play, but scoring points in the last few hours is more meaningful in terms of alliance scoring just because there is no time left. think of it like scoring at the end of any sporting contest. So to use baseball as an example: a run scored in the 9th inning is worth just as much as a run scored in the 1st inning. But when it comes to determining a winner, the 9th inning run can have a much larger effect on a team's win probability because there are many many fewer opportunities for the other team to counter. In MPQ this means that alliances with active players (and especially active commanders) during the last few hours of an event have a distinct competitive advantage. They can add more points (either via extra grinding, or via merc) to counter any changes on the leaderboards. Meanwhile players in less convenient timezones are fast asleep or in the middle of their work day and unable to respond.

I agree, but it's not like only one team gets to bat in the 9th inning. The home team gets the last at bat, of course... but the road team gets to bat first. Score more points early (or at the top of the 9th) and you put more pressure on the home team... so both positions have advantages. So, sure, someone playing at the very end of the match gets to see where everyone else finished in the alliance, and see what they need to score. But I played in slice 2, and I scored in the top 4 of my alliance, and we finished in the top 100 for alliances... so, sure I may have given up the small advantage of "seeing what the score was before playing", but that didn't put me at any disadvantage. Again, I agree with you on most of the post. And I understand your idea in general. In reality, this is a developer's issue on new character releases (and 4* in general). I just wanted to state that I think, on the forums in general, we act like someone is getting an unfair advantage waaaaaay too often. Not trying to call you out personally, just trying to push past the "participation trophy" vibe I get around here sometimes.

GurlBYE

To be fair this could be extended to so many parts of the game.

People see it (this extending rewards beyond where they are) as "participation trophies" when it's something lower than where they are in the game, so it's not something I give much credence to considering the entire game is below where the forums are roster wise, even the developers aren't where the forums and whales are.

Honestly if they just shifted it to alliance progression like boss events for PVE, they'd end merc-ing in the same swoop.
And alliances that put in a predetermined amount of work would get the reward.

That way alliances would all have an added incentive to work together instead of the top players just kinda flopping about for rewards.

The only issue would be them actually needing to put the work in to do the math to figure out what would be needed, including not just multiplying the entire score by 4 when there are wave nodes.

smkspy

4 star releases just aren't what they use to be and the devs need to stop treating them as this Uber rate resource that we have to kick and scream just to aquire one or two upon their release. Everyone at this point should easily obtain at least one cover just for hitting progression during a release event.

JablesMc

smkspy wrote:

4 star releases just aren't what they use to be and the devs need to stop treating them as this Uber rate resource that we have to kick and scream just to aquire one or two upon their release. Everyone at this point should easily obtain at least one cover just for hitting progression during a release event.

SCL 9-10?

GrumpySmurf1002

notamutant wrote:

Simple solution would be adjusting shield clearance level 8 rewards for alliance to move to top 125 or 150. Or adding level 9 at that.

Not necessarily that simple since a 101-125 or 101-150 tier doesn't exist in the reward structure. Which means with this team it could easily be months upon months before implementation.

T250 Alliance Covers for SCL8 and SCL7 is the really simple solution. They already set rewards on the fly as it is, so it requires close to no effort to change.

It's such an obvious thing that the game needs and I'll keep banging the drum for it until it's in. The fact that your alliance means zero for the current reward structure (because everyone just changes alliances the last day) is asinine. Mercs can still happen for casual players, and that's fine. But T100 alliances shouldn't have to dump members and/or merc their entire alliance because hundreds of players are trying to squeeze in to limited spots.

GurlBYE

smkspy wrote:

4 star releases just aren't what they use to be and the devs need to stop treating them as this Uber rate resource that we have to kick and scream just to aquire one or two upon their release. Everyone at this point should easily obtain at least one cover just for hitting progression during a release event.

They'd rather us be realistic and not spend the HP to even roster them to begin with.

GurlBYE

Alliance progression makes a lot more sense than just pushing the numbers down and delaying the inevitable. We realistically at this point won't be seeing 5's as any sort of reward for a WHILE (and if we do expect maybe to 2 alliances to get them)

Arphaxad

As an alliance commander I can tell you how frustrating it is to see your alliance drop from 50th to 80th in the last hour. Once the merc alliances see what it takes to hit top 100 they start pooling together. This hurts alliances that have 20 active players that play together the entire event.

Lets not forget the fact there are nearly 20k alliances in each event. Rewarding only the top 100 with the new cover is ridiculous. 0.5% is a very small reward pool. It should be at least top 200.

Yes, D3 has made it easier for players to get the new covers, between clearance levels and progression reward in the following event, but keeping the old top 100 alliance reward structure hurts the community.

Phumade

notamutant wrote:

Your analysis is only correct in regards to the general idea of people still being awake to do swapping. But actually being a player or having players in the last slice is a disadvantage. Try getting a merc to join your alliance ranked 98 because half your alliance is playing last slice. Far easier to get a merc to join a lower scoring alliance that is temporarily higher ranked because everyone is in earlier slices.

lol

Good Alliance commanders manage both. After 120+ new char releases, the most experience commanders all know when an how the cut line changes. Having late players is a huge advantage, but your right in the sense that only established alliance commanders with good organizational reputations can post in the various merc rooms and say, that they have late players who can protect alliance position.

But those alliances who have strong reputational advantages, really can pick and chose among merc options. Although, I would admit if your alliance has a strong reputation then you almost inevitably have good working relationships with all the other top alliance commanders, and the slice you play almost never comes up.

carrion_pigeons

Is it really harder to find mercs at the end of an event? You would think all the mercs who join an alliance early only to see that alliance fall out of the top 100 would just abandon the alliance and find one that actually can use their score.

I mean, I'm not a part of this scene at all, but that's what makes sense to me. Getting mercs early or late seems like it ought to be irrelevant since the mercs would be able to (and would want to) leave until the last second anyway. Compare that to the advantage of information and it seems hard to argue that alliances in the last slice have a significant advantage.

mohio

Phumade kind of beat me to my point, but I'll make it anyway. Most of these alliance commanders that are pulling in mercs, or even setting up entire alliances full of mercs, know exactly what is needed before the event even starts. They might adjust slightly as the event goes on and it becomes a little clearer how high the majority of top players are scoring, but for the most part prior experience tells us how high over progression the average for t100 will be, and therefore about where we need to set the cutoff for minimum scores. I'm not trying to say that the commanders of alliances that missed t100 are bad by any means, but with a little data on past performance for new releases, they could prepare accordingly.

To address the the thread about later slices somehow having an advantage over earlier ones, that's just silly. It only helps teams that are near the t100 cutoff react by swapping players around if they so choose. You could easily set up a team of only s1 players that could take t10 rewards so long as they all hit the required threshold - points are the same across all slices, it really doesn't matter where they come from. I said it above but it's worth repeating, it's really all about knowing what those cutoffs usually are and planning ahead either by getting mercs that hit those cutoffs earlier, or by communicating with your alliance members what their scores need to be ahead of time.

All that said I agree with the OP's premise. The scores needed for alliance t100 are way too high, and extending alliance rewards past t100 to 150 or 200 (or even 250, although I doubt they would go so far) would go a long way to alleviating the stress on the whole player base to join early and grind for crazy scores.

Bondidude

Phumade and Mohio kind of already covered this, but I'll throw in my 2 cents agreeing with them.

The number you posted as being the average of the alliance that hit 100 is around 150%.

What did our command team know we needed to hit historically to t100 this event for our alliances? Around 150%.

In an event where people were capable of scores of 170%+ (someone in my alliance hit it, it's possible) then if you stack a group of scores like that for absolute top placement having a 20-25% variance between the very top and very bottom of t100 is quite reasonable to me.

It's really not just about mercs. It's about setting reasonable goals, making sure everyone hits them and then riding out the storm or making necessary adjustments as you go.

Though, I do agree, it would be nice to see it expanded to t250 even if it is just in SCL 9. That way there is more opportunity for the members of my alliance family that are in lower scoring alliances to get the extra cover as well.

SnowcaTT

The thing is just putting rewards "down" to T250 in the next SCL (remember that folks would have to get to that experience, it is not just "participation" trophy) would be great...but pretty pointless unless you put two alliance covers down to T100. Because the whole point of the SCL's is so you can transition faster at the top, right?

And then the same thing will happen - everyone will have huge merc movement at the end. Maybe less complaints because everyone trying to get there will get one cover...but still some complaints because those trying to get two covers got pushed out.

Unless/until they fix the merc mechanism, this will always be a problem.

I also agree the 150%+ needed is ridiculous. It was made worse by having two 48 hour subs....waaaay to much clumping of scores. DP vs DDQ has been run a couple of times as a release event lately, and that needs to STOP.

mohio

carrion pigeons wrote:

Is it really harder to find mercs at the end of an event? You would think all the mercs who join an alliance early only to see that alliance fall out of the top 100 would just abandon the alliance and find one that actually can use their score.

I mean, I'm not a part of this scene at all, but that's what makes sense to me. Getting mercs early or late seems like it ought to be irrelevant since the mercs would be able to (and would want to) leave until the last second anyway. Compare that to the advantage of information and it seems hard to argue that alliances in the last slice have a significant advantage.

I haven't been in charge of mercs for quite some time (thankfully), but as a commander I see what happens a lot. It really is more difficult to find mercs at the end of events because most are already taken. For US Eastern Time Zone players PvE events end at 2AM. That is far too late for basically anyone with a job, so these players (which I think are a quite large percentage of the total player base) must join alliances before they go to bed, which is usually at least 2 hours before the event ends.

To address the other part about mercs wanting to leave and find the best possible situation for themselves, that is severely frowned upon to the point where if you were to do that, you would likely be unable to merc in the future and really hurt the standing of your commander in the merc community as well. It is up to the commanders that accept the mercs to deliver on their promise of t100 or whatever, but the mercs themselves really cannot just jump ship if things don't look good.

Vhailorx

carrion pigeons wrote:

Is it really harder to find mercs at the end of an event? You would think all the mercs who join an alliance early only to see that alliance fall out of the top 100 would just abandon the alliance and find one that actually can use their score.

I mean, I'm not a part of this scene at all, but that's what makes sense to me. Getting mercs early or late seems like it ought to be irrelevant since the mercs would be able to (and would want to) leave until the last second anyway. Compare that to the advantage of information and it seems hard to argue that alliances in the last slice have a significant advantage.

Well there is some transactional cost to find mercs. The alliance commander and the merc have to be in communication, and the actual switch takes a small amount of time. and the later you can do it, the more certainty there is about what scores are necessary and where the cutoff will be.

and Re: fairness and competition Seriously, **** is wrong with everyone?!

In order to get an alliance cover, any given alliance needs to have one of the top 100 scores by Time X. Why is it hard to understand that alliances with more flexibility to alter (i.e. raise) their score right before Time X have a competitive advantage?!

This isn't about participation trophies, or griping about fairness or entitlement. Can we stop with the stupid internet meme of complaining about whiny millenials? MPQ alliance scoring is a very straightforward system, and everyone plays by the same rules. So it's "fair" in that sense. But it's also clear that playing in some ways is competitively advantageous. (Just like the optimal play schedule in pve. You don't HAVE to play on that schedule. But you sure as hell do if you want to finish top 10.)

The bottom line is that finishing in the top 100 is now a significant hassle that seriously degrades the player experience, and all for a relatively small prize. A single 4* cover just isn't that big a deal in the current meta. There are now 45 regular rotation 4*s? and a whole tier above them too. Why continue restrict alliance rewards so aggressively?

(and yes, if 20 players in an alliance all score 160% of prog then they would have no trouble finishing top 100. But that is a very high bar to require for a single 4* cover. there is only so much scoring slack in the current scoring system to begin with. if top 100 already requires better than 6/6 on all nodes, then there is an entirely separate argument to be had about what is a reasonable scoring threshold for alliance covers.)

Fightmastermpq

I've said this before, but they should replace Alliance Rewards with Global Rewards. Because mercing is so prevalent it's almost to the point now where the top 2,000 players get that extra alliance cover, so just make that the structure. Stop trying to force the playerbase into hybrid alliances - let PvP be alliance-based, and PvE be more individualized.