Alliance rewards

mischiefmaker

Just read the latest installment of the VentureBeat series, and found this quote very interesting:

This change has one big downside that we will eventually need to combat — the rich keep getting richer. All gameplay patterns follow a power-curve, but Alliances actually make that curve even steeper. The best players coalesce around the top Alliances leaving everyone else behind.

Here's one proposal that would help to combat this:

- Create a pool of rewards that don't scale 1:1 with number of players
- Allow commanders to distribute rewards

For example, imagine the prize distribution for Hollowpoint Kiss were something like this:

#1 - 2000 ISO, (1 Thor cover, 1 500 HP reward, 1 250 HP reward, 1 OBW cover) per 2 players in alliance, 1 Nick Fury cover per 5 players in alliance
#2-50 - 2000 ISO, (1 Thor cover, 1 100 HP reward, 1 50 HP reward, 1 OBW cover) per 2 players in alliance, 1 Nick Fury cover per 10 players in alliance
#51-100 - 2000 ISO, (1 Thor cover, 1 50 HP reward, 1 25 HP reward, 1 OBW cover) per 2 players in alliance
#101-below: no change

All scaled rewards go to an Alliance treasury, and the Commanders get to distribute it any way they see fit. There could also be a cap, for instance, 1 Fury cover per 5 players, max 5, or just a flat cap regardless of player size.

This would have several effects:

1. Encourages much greater socialization between alliance members, because they need to coordinate who needs what.
2. Encourages much greater competition between alliance members, because they'll each want to make a case that they deserve one of the nicer rewards.
3. Players of different roster levels can coexist in the same alliance, as there will be a meaningful reward for people in different tiers.
4. Alliance size can be allowed to grow without worrying that too many rewards are being given out.
5. Slightly discourages players from forming super-alliances of all high level players, since there won't be enough high-level rewards for everyone, thus encouraging inter-alliance competition.

Neuromancer

I like mishiefmaker's proposal.

The idea of an Alliance treasury also lends itself to an idea I had where players could sell their unwanted ***+ covers to their guild, so their fellow members could get access to them, rather than sell them off to the void never to be seen again.

You could work on balancing by still having an expiration date on the covers, giving people less Iso for selling a cover to their Alliance rather than the void, charging a player 10x the games' sale price (10 x 500 for 3* / 10 x 1000 for 4*) in Iso to purchase from a guild treasury, etc. I dunno, I'm not paid to think of balancing for your economy.

The treasury could also have its own pile of ISO / HPs that members could donate toward so the Alliance could fund these purchases. Or maybe there's no donation aspect at all, and the Alliance must win in order to improve treasury funds, or some small tithe is taken out of each member's victories. I dunno, I'm spitballing.

I just think this would help create a stronger communal bond, and again make Alliances more appealing to join without directly impacting solo players.

Bottom line: +1 to mishchiefmaker.

Nemek

I think it's a good idea, but my concern would be the drama that comes with such a thing. It's one thing to complain about players constantly attacking you, and quite another when there are broken promises, power trips, and alliance coups in there. While that's potentially something some players would like, I don't think MPQ has the same player mindset as EVE (or something similar).

mischiefmaker

Fair point. I didn't really think about it too much as I'm the commander of my alliance (and of course I would be fair and just and perfect in handing out rewards every time), but yeah, there could be unpleasant drama. A tweak that might work would be something like, all the rewards get put into the alliance stash, and then each player gets to pick a reward in the order that they finished (or they can pass), repeating until all the rewards are gone.

That makes sure everyone gets something and distributes the blame for broken promises to "everyone who picked the thing you wanted" instead of just the commander(s), but has the unfortunate property that it might take a really long time to distribute rewards, if just one person is gone for an extended period of time. You could solve that by having all the players input their preferences ahead of time, like a fantasy football draft, but that's kind of a lot of kludgy UI.

I'm a little bit of the mindset that if your alliance screws you, you should find a new alliance that won't (thus creating a state where alliances that want to keep their players don't screw them, so everyone is happy), but I've never been in an MMO guild and gotten screwed, so maybe I'm just being naive.

Unknown

my time in a MMO came to an end when I wasn't getting screwed by my guild, but I was not able to put in the effort to earn the rewards I wanted because someone else more deserving would get them first. That was fair but also meant the time I did put into that guild was mostly wasted. Oh the amount of time I saved by walking away from all that

Unknown

But, thinking on your idea further I do like it a lot.

Maybe if the top 20 performers in a top 50 alliance all get their covers. Iso and HP can be delivered as normal or scaled so 1-3 get more than 20th.

Top 500? maybe only the top performer gets one.

Would encourage competition within alliances, help weaker alliances still get good rewards.

Though it would be a double edged sword if you are the weakest link in a mid range alliance and miss out on rewards that you could have gotten if you were in a weaker (or stronger for that matter) alliance.