The Death of the Solo Whale Player

Meto5000

pandaberry6 wrote:

Meto5000 wrote:

Your words carry a lot of weight as a moderator and it's troubling that this is what you got out of everything I said.

Please note that we moderators are just regular forumites who have offered to sticky threads and delete spam posts. Our words should not be weighed differently than any other person because our name is in green.

You police the forums. Even when you're in "plainclothes" you still represent D3 on this forum simply because you have been promoted to a moderator position and have a green colored name. When a mod responds to a post with what was essentially, "Stop whining," it means more than randomjoe877 with 5 posts saying it. Yes, you're not posting as a moderator (which really, you only do when you're policing a thread), but like it or not, you're not just simply one of the pack and you should consider that when posting. Unfair or not, you're going to be held to a higher standard than most.

Unknown

Meto5000 wrote:

pandaberry6 wrote:

Meto5000 wrote:

Your words carry a lot of weight as a moderator and it's troubling that this is what you got out of everything I said.

Please note that we moderators are just regular forumites who have offered to sticky threads and delete spam posts. Our words should not be weighed differently than any other person because our name is in green.

You police the forums. Even when you're in "plainclothes" you still represent D3 on this forum simply because you have been promoted to a moderator position and have a green colored name. When a mod responds to a post with what was essentially, "Stop whining," it means more than randomjoe877 with 5 posts saying it. Yes, you're not posting as a moderator (which really, you only do when you're policing a thread), but like it or not, you're not just simply one of the pack and you should consider that when posting. Unfair or not, you're going to be held to a higher standard than most.

I don't respect Puritas, panda, and the rest of our mod pack at all, but maybe that's because I knew them BEFORE they were cool

Meto5000

gamar wrote:

Meto5000 wrote:

pandaberry6 wrote:

Meto5000 wrote:

Your words carry a lot of weight as a moderator and it's troubling that this is what you got out of everything I said.

Please note that we moderators are just regular forumites who have offered to sticky threads and delete spam posts. Our words should not be weighed differently than any other person because our name is in green.

You police the forums. Even when you're in "plainclothes" you still represent D3 on this forum simply because you have been promoted to a moderator position and have a green colored name. When a mod responds to a post with what was essentially, "Stop whining," it means more than randomjoe877 with 5 posts saying it. Yes, you're not posting as a moderator (which really, you only do when you're policing a thread), but like it or not, you're not just simply one of the pack and you should consider that when posting. Unfair or not, you're going to be held to a higher standard than most.

I don't respect Puritas, panda, and the rest of our mod pack at all, but maybe that's because I knew them BEFORE they were cool

Haha, quite honestly this may be the difference. They were just forum people that posted a lot before so many of the older players know them. Newer visitors to the forums like myself just know them as mods.

Unknown

MikeHock wrote:

I understand you were just sharing what D3 spoke about. Being forced to be in an alliance (a TOP alliance) to remain competitive is totally not my thing. Me and my 5 player alliance, Raining Blood, will never win an alliance cover reward. The writing in on the wall for me. I've got a competitive team after 6 months, but I'm done grinding every day for minimal cover rewards since they've been scaled back significantly.

My question to you is a bit more abstract. Do you still enjoy the gameplay? I do - I love the Puzzle Quest IP and the match 3 combat system in general (even trying weird variants like Puzzle Chronicles and Puzzle Kingdoms). Given that, when I saw alliances being added, I migrated to an alliance, and my style of play hasn't altered that much at all. The second alliance I joined fit my semi-hardcore style of play and now we can consistently win the third cover.

This has been my assertion all along - that you can find an alliance that fits your playstyle, that will be competitive at the level you need, and will allow you to be a wallflower so long as you participate in a manner on par with them. And the mmo community as a whole shows ample evidence of this. I was almost completely asocial with my WoW guild and was the main tank for almost 2 years out of my 5 that I played with them. They were fine if I missed a night; the OT became MT and one of our DPS off-tanked that night).

I will say, at the very least, have you tried joining a larger alliance? Or pooling funds (via something like paypal) to expand your current alliance? If you want to be truly f2p and still get 3 covers in every tourney, your days are definitely done. But everyone else has a fair chance (and if they ever implement communal HP for alliances, so much the better).

Phaserhawk

I am oh so very glad to have gotten into a good alliance right away. It is a proverbial gold mine of ISO, HP, and covers. but its the later that does make me feel bad for other players. I would much rather have all the covers available to all the players than only those in a good alliance. That really needs to be fixed. I think most people can live with top alliances getting more ISO or HP, because you can always supplement that with $ if you so choose or a lot more playing. I really, really hope that they do away with the the 3rd alliance cover and instead just give out heroic tokens. Like top 2 alliances get 10 Heroic tokens, or heck even get the 10x boost token draw, until then. You are gonna have to grind it out, and work your way up the alliance ranks, play hard and talk to guys on the forum, perhaps you can get a trial run as a 20th member. Get the rewards and look to climb up as you progress.

It should be

$=covers, HP, Iso
Alliances=HP,ISO
solo=covers, HP, ISO

woopie

pasa_ wrote:

I'm seriously considering to drop all PVE play after the recent one. Unless there is significant change (fat chance) to the structure. It requires excessive amount of time, strict timepoints of play for success and most importantly waaay too BORING repeating the same battles over and over with only "twist" to add insane scaling outside the design parameters. That is not fun either only painful.

Just PVP still seem working in the meantime as it can be done with not much time somewhere in the 2.5d period.

My alliance may not be happy about it -- if so I just quit, maybe join a pvp-only alliance.

Sure it means goodbye to new characters for a while as they arrive in PVE, but they are hardly better than what we already have and only essential for the next PVE... so it seem like a working contingency plan for now.

Seriously. The Hunt PvE has been going on for too dang long.

reckless442

Phaserhawk wrote:

I am oh so very glad to have gotten into a good alliance right away. It is a proverbial gold mine of ISO, HP, and covers. but its the later that does make me feel bad for other players. I would much rather have all the covers available to all the players than only those in a good alliance. That really needs to be fixed. I think most people can live with top alliances getting more ISO or HP, because you can always supplement that with $ if you so choose or a lot more playing. I really, really hope that they do away with the the 3rd alliance cover and instead just give out heroic tokens. Like top 2 alliances get 10 Heroic tokens, or heck even get the 10x boost token draw, until then. You are gonna have to grind it out, and work your way up the alliance ranks, play hard and talk to guys on the forum, perhaps you can get a trial run as a 20th member. Get the rewards and look to climb up as you progress.

It should be

$=covers, HP, Iso
Alliances=HP,ISO
solo=covers, HP, ISO

But you seem to be missing what people have repeatedly pointed out. Under the old system, that third cover was only won by the five highest scorers in a bracket. Most players never had a chance of getting that third cover under the old system. Under the alliance-reward system, more people are getting the third covers than were getting them before.

The only player who is not better off under the new system is the high-level player with a strong roster who was winning brackets before alliances -- but who, through choice, has decided against joining an alliance. I suspect that someone with a roster capable of regular top-5 finishes under the old system would have no trouble finding space in an alliance capable of getting into the top-100. I can understand that alliances have their drawbacks -- you feel compelled to play "for the good of the team"; some people may not be as competitive; etc. -- but a lot of people have seen significant benefits -- more covers and ISO, access to new strategies, etc. So I have difficulty seeing this as the OP complaining that the game isn't catering to his preferred style of play -- that he wants to only play solo and get full rewards.

_RiO_

reckless442 wrote:

But you seem to be missing what people have repeatedly pointed out. Under the old system, that third cover was only won by the five highest scorers in a bracket. Most players never had a chance of getting that third cover under the old system. Under the alliance-reward system, more people are getting the third covers than were getting them before.

The only player who is not better off under the new system is the high-level player with a strong roster who was winning brackets before alliances -- but who, through choice, has decided against joining an alliance. I suspect that someone with a roster capable of regular top-5 finishes under the old system would have no trouble finding space in an alliance capable of getting into the top-100.

I'm going to postulate the exact opposite; under the old system a lower level player had a good shot at getting all three covers when they would get sorted into a bracket without many high level player. Now that the 3rd cover is moved to alliances, that same lower level player has that cover placed guaranteed out of reach unless they are lucky enough to get picked up by a top alliance on the off chance that they'll prove a valuable asset in the future.

HailMary

_RiO_ wrote:

I'm going to postulate the exact opposite; under the old system a lower level player had a good shot at getting all three covers when they would get sorted into a bracket without many high level player. Now that the 3rd cover is moved to alliances, that same lower level player has that cover placed guaranteed out of reach unless they are lucky enough to get picked up by a top alliance on the off chance that they'll prove a valuable asset in the future.

From past personal experience: maxed-1* teams didn't stand an actual chance of PVP Top 5. Near-max 2* teams stood a chance if they were lucky and really went for it. I did it with a 3xL70+ team a few times, but far from consistently. I admittedly may have fared better if I had a usable OBW at the time. One of our most hardcore Djangoliers was consistently taking #1 with his near-max 2* team, but with that kind of performance, he would've been eagerly welcomed into almost any alliance of his choosing.

From present personal observation: many Top 100 alliances have recruited and continue to recruit players below the 3xL85 threshold. Almost two months after formation and primary expansion, Django still has an unmaxed-2* member, and 4-5 of us got our first L100+ char in the past 3-4 weeks.

Unknown

reckless442 wrote:

But you seem to be missing what people have repeatedly pointed out. Under the old system, that third cover was only won by the five highest scorers in a bracket. Most players never had a chance of getting that third cover under the old system. Under the alliance-reward system, more people are getting the third covers than were getting them before.

The only player who is not better off under the new system is the high-level player with a strong roster who was winning brackets before alliances -- but who, through choice, has decided against joining an alliance. I suspect that someone with a roster capable of regular top-5 finishes under the old system would have no trouble finding space in an alliance capable of getting into the top-100. I can understand that alliances have their drawbacks -- you feel compelled to play "for the good of the team"; some people may not be as competitive; etc. -- but a lot of people have seen significant benefits -- more covers and ISO, access to new strategies, etc. So I have difficulty seeing this as the OP complaining that the game isn't catering to his preferred style of play -- that he wants to only play solo and get full rewards.

I'm going to play devil's advocate a bit here, because I was that player before alliances were put in. I often finished top 5 and was able to get all 3 covers. When alliances were introduced, I was fortunate enough to join a great one (Retribution). However, many others were not as fortunate, and also, many others may not have been compelled to do so. With the moving of the 3rd cover to alliance rewards, it was forcing the hands of many players to join alliances, and not everyone likes to be forced to do something they don't want to do.

Now fast forward to today....it's easy sitting from the high perch and say "well, you should have joined an alliance". And I do agree with you that it's something anyone who's serious about the game should have done, it's not that big a deal. However, it's a little bit unfair to those who truly just want to play a single player game to force them into alliances for prizes, especially when the game started out as single player game.

At this point, the horses are out of the barn, and there is no turning back. However, to mitigate the reliance on alliances (which is something Demiurge wants to do if you are following that multi-part article about monetization of the game), first and foremost the 3rd cover should be rotated, to give a single player a shot at all the covers eventually. And they have done that now. Still, the better solution imo would be something like Phaserhawk proposed.

The other big issue, and one that Demiurge hinted at addressing.....is that all the power is currently at the top. Imagine you are just starting out playing the game. You have ZERO idea how important alliances are going to be to your future. Once you realize that being in a top alliance is mandatory for adequate progression.....what do you do? The top top alliances are all filled, with only an occasional spot available. You might be able to get in a top-100 alliance, but that's not for certain at this point. Remember, the top 100 alliances account for only 2000 people in the entire game, and my guess is the vast majority of those spots are already filled. How many people are actively playing? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? So for someone currently not in a top alliance, there is a lot of competition to get into one.

Meanwhile, the longer you are not in a top-100 alliance, the more the power difference widens. At best they are getting 2 covers for every hero, while the rest of us in top alliances are getting 3.

This problem is just going to compound as the game gets older unless Demiurge does something to address it. Those of us who have been in the game longer have an almost insurmountable advantage over any new player. Imagine a new player who is addicted to this game, who plays the game as much as yourself or any other SHIELD member....where is he/she going to go? Which alliance can he/she join? Does he wait until a spot opens up to join a top alliance, meanwhile missing out on covers? Or does he just join a random "top-100" alliance and hope for the best? Shouldn't he have a shot at all the covers if he chooses to wait to join an alliance that suits his hard-core playstyle, instead of just joining some random alliance he's probably going to alliance-hop out of once a spot opens up in a top alliance?

Unknown

Riggy wrote:

MikeHock wrote:

I understand you were just sharing what D3 spoke about. Being forced to be in an alliance (a TOP alliance) to remain competitive is totally not my thing. Me and my 5 player alliance, Raining Blood, will never win an alliance cover reward. The writing in on the wall for me. I've got a competitive team after 6 months, but I'm done grinding every day for minimal cover rewards since they've been scaled back significantly.

My question to you is a bit more abstract. Do you still enjoy the gameplay? I do - I love the Puzzle Quest IP and the match 3 combat system in general (even trying weird variants like Puzzle Chronicles and Puzzle Kingdoms). Given that, when I saw alliances being added, I migrated to an alliance, and my style of play hasn't altered that much at all. The second alliance I joined fit my semi-hardcore style of play and now we can consistently win the third cover.

This has been my assertion all along - that you can find an alliance that fits your playstyle, that will be competitive at the level you need, and will allow you to be a wallflower so long as you participate in a manner on par with them. And the mmo community as a whole shows ample evidence of this. I was almost completely asocial with my WoW guild and was the main tank for almost 2 years out of my 5 that I played with them. They were fine if I missed a night; the OT became MT and one of our DPS off-tanked that night).

I will say, at the very least, have you tried joining a larger alliance? Or pooling funds (via something like paypal) to expand your current alliance? If you want to be truly f2p and still get 3 covers in every tourney, your days are definitely done. But everyone else has a fair chance (and if they ever implement communal HP for alliances, so much the better).

At the most basic level, the game is fun, but in the past few weeks, I've just about had it. Events aren't fun anymore, rewards have been nerfed, no communication about nerfs to rewards, NO CONSISTENCY AT ALL in the 6 months I've played. I'm not going to grind for days on end to yield a single cover and I'm certainly not wasting my time with alliance **** that I wanted no part of to begin with. It was hinted that alliances would not be such a huge part of the game and would not impact the overall format, but that turned out to be an outright lie. D3 now wants alliances to be a larger part of the game, so of course I'm on my way out and D3 can go effff themselves to oblivion.

My nastiness and frustration is not aimed at you; you were nice enough to try and offer some support so thank you for your efforts.

Unknown

Mizake wrote:

At this point, the horses are out of the barn, and there is no turning back. However, to mitigate the reliance on alliances (which is something Demiurge wants to do if you are following that multi-part article about monetization of the game), first and foremost the 3rd cover should be rotated, to give a single player a shot at all the covers eventually. And they have done that now. Still, the better solution imo would be something like Phaserhawk proposed.

I didn't get that out of the article at all. It sounded to me like Demiurge is pushing very hard on Alliances which is where they believe their long term success will be. Why would they want to disincentivize that?

Mizake wrote:

The other big issue, and one that Demiurge hinted at addressing.....is that all the power is currently at the top. Imagine you are just starting out playing the game. You have ZERO idea how important alliances are going to be to your future. Once you realize that being in a top alliance is mandatory for adequate progression.....what do you do? The top top alliances are all filled, with only an occasional spot available. You might be able to get in a top-100 alliance, but that's not for certain at this point. Remember, the top 100 alliances account for only 2000 people in the entire game, and my guess is the vast majority of those spots are already filled. How many people are actively playing? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? So for someone currently not in a top alliance, there is a lot of competition to get into one.

Demiurge hinted that they would address this "down the road," and said that they were happy with where things are currently. And for now, it's silly to consider the "top 100" alliances as a monolithic block of 2000 power players that a new player can't crack in to. If you look at alliances in the top 100, you'll find plenty of dead-weight. And if existing top 100 alliances refuse to get rid of their underperformers, then someone more cutthroat will come along and knock them out of the top 100.

This is a random guess, but I bet if you let me pick and choose from the 101-120 Alliances, I'd be able to make a top 10 alliance without much trouble - there's that much inefficiency in the system right now.

Meanwhile, the longer you are not in a top-100 alliance, the more the power difference widens. At best they are getting 2 covers for every hero, while the rest of us in top alliances are getting 3.

This is a problem that may well disappear once alliances mature. After all, if player A gets two covers that they can actually apply while player B gets three covers that get turned into ISO - who improved more?

This problem is just going to compound as the game gets older unless Demiurge does something to address it. Those of us who have been in the game longer have an almost insurmountable advantage over any new player. Imagine a new player who is addicted to this game, who plays the game as much as yourself or any other SHIELD member....where is he/she going to go? Which alliance can he/she join? Does he wait until a spot opens up to join a top alliance, meanwhile missing out on covers? Or does he just join a random "top-100" alliance and hope for the best? Shouldn't he have a shot at all the covers if he chooses to wait to join an alliance that suits his hard-core playstyle, instead of just joining some random alliance he's probably going to alliance-hop out of once a spot opens up in a top alliance?

I think you're assuming that things will stabilize in some sort of static situation where everyone is in set alliances and nothing ever changes. I think there will always be new alliances of every stripe being formed, and there will always be turnover inside the top 100 alliances as people fall behind or drop out.

Unknown

Mizake wrote:

At this point, the horses are out of the barn, and there is no turning back. However, to mitigate the reliance on alliances (which is something Demiurge wants to do if you are following that multi-part article about monetization of the game), first and foremost the 3rd cover should be rotated, to give a single player a shot at all the covers eventually. And they have done that now. Still, the better solution imo would be something like Phaserhawk proposed.

I didn't get that out of the article at all. It sounded to me like Demiurge is pushing very hard on Alliances which is where they believe their long term success will be. Why would they want to disincentivize that? Phaserhawk's proposed solution would likely be very bad for the Alliance system, as it takes out the major benefit to being in an Alliance in the first place. Granted, it's a great solution if you want to be able to ignore alliances, which is explicitly not what Demiurge is going for.

Mizake wrote:

The other big issue, and one that Demiurge hinted at addressing.....is that all the power is currently at the top. Imagine you are just starting out playing the game. You have ZERO idea how important alliances are going to be to your future. Once you realize that being in a top alliance is mandatory for adequate progression.....what do you do? The top top alliances are all filled, with only an occasional spot available. You might be able to get in a top-100 alliance, but that's not for certain at this point. Remember, the top 100 alliances account for only 2000 people in the entire game, and my guess is the vast majority of those spots are already filled. How many people are actively playing? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? So for someone currently not in a top alliance, there is a lot of competition to get into one.

Demiurge hinted that they would address this "down the road," and said that they were happy with where things are currently. And for now, it's silly to consider the "top 100" alliances as a monolithic block of 2000 power players that a new player can't crack in to. If you look at alliances in the top 100, you'll find plenty of deadweight. And if existing top 100 alliances refuse to get rid of their underperformers, then someone more cutthroat will come along and knock them out of the top 100.

This is a random guess, but I bet if you let me pick and choose from the 101-120 Alliances, I'd be able to make a top 10 alliance without much trouble - there's that much inefficiency in the system right now. And that's not likely to improve quickly.

Meanwhile, the longer you are not in a top-100 alliance, the more the power difference widens. At best they are getting 2 covers for every hero, while the rest of us in top alliances are getting 3.

This is a problem that may well disappear once alliances mature. After all, if player A gets two covers that they can actually apply while player B gets three covers that get turned into ISO - who improved more?

This problem is just going to compound as the game gets older unless Demiurge does something to address it. Those of us who have been in the game longer have an almost insurmountable advantage over any new player. Imagine a new player who is addicted to this game, who plays the game as much as yourself or any other SHIELD member....where is he/she going to go? Which alliance can he/she join? Does he wait until a spot opens up to join a top alliance, meanwhile missing out on covers? Or does he just join a random "top-100" alliance and hope for the best? Shouldn't he have a shot at all the covers if he chooses to wait to join an alliance that suits his hard-core playstyle, instead of just joining some random alliance he's probably going to alliance-hop out of once a spot opens up in a top alliance?

I think you're assuming that things will stabilize in some sort of static situation where everyone is in set alliances and nothing ever changes. I think there will always be new alliances of every stripe being formed, and there will always be turnover inside the top 100 alliances as people fall behind or drop out.

Unknown

Demiurge is pushing alliances, this is true, they also think alliances tend to make more players sticky.

However, their overall goal is to keep all players around. It would be highly foolish of them to completely ignore every non top 100 alliance player, and they have said as much that they are going to need to address some of the problems with the current dynamic.

If alliance players stick around and spend more, demiurge will take that into account but will also start looking for ways to keep the rest of the playerbase happy as well. Having some rewards geared towards non alliance players would only make more people feel like they are getting the most out of the game.

And for what it is worth my current alliance has only lost a single player since we started and he was a member for less than a whole day. Maybe we are atypical but I am not seeing lots of turnover in large alliances. And to assume that the only purpose of an alliance is the most efficient collection of people to maximize points is a little insulting.

Unknown

Cryptobrancus wrote:

Demiurge is pushing alliances, this is true, they also think alliances tend to make more players sticky.

However, their overall goal is to keep all players around. It would be highly foolish of them to completely ignore every non top 100 alliance player, and they have said as much that they are going to need to address some of the problems with the current dynamic.

VentureBeatArticle wrote:

As our player-base matures, we’ll eventually implement mechanics to combat this pattern but for now we’re happy to have a world where our best players are organizing online and enjoying some exciting competition.

Clearly they don't believe this is an issue right now.

Cryptobrancus wrote:

If alliance players stick around and spend more, demiurge will take that into account but will also start looking for ways to keep the rest of the playerbase happy as well. Having some rewards geared towards non alliance players would only make more people feel like they are getting the most out of the game.

There are already a ton of rewards geared toward non alliance players. You know, the ones labeled "Player Rewards." In fact, those far outstrip the alliance rewards in almost all instances.

Cryptobrancus wrote:

And for what it is worth my current alliance has only lost a single player since we started and he was a member for less than a whole day. Maybe we are atypical but I am not seeing lots of turnover in large alliances. And to assume that the only purpose of an alliance is the most efficient collection of people to maximize points is a little insulting.

I'm afraid you'll just have to be insulted then.

VentureBeatArticle wrote:

Our hope is that this will encourage socialization outside of the game with players actively kicking underperformers out of their alliances and recruiting higher-end teammates.

Unknown

ZenBrillig wrote:

I didn't get that out of the article at all. It sounded to me like Demiurge is pushing very hard on Alliances which is where they believe their long term success will be. Why would they want to disincentivize that?

We are saying the same thing, so poor wording on my part I guess. What I meant was Demiurge was pushing us to rely on alliances, so we are in agreement.

ZenBrillig wrote:

Demiurge hinted that they would address this "down the road," and said that they were happy with where things are currently. And for now, it's silly to consider the "top 100" alliances as a monolithic block of 2000 power players that a new player can't crack in to. If you look at alliances in the top 100, you'll find plenty of dead-weight. And if existing top 100 alliances refuse to get rid of their underperformers, then someone more cutthroat will come along and knock them out of the top 100.

This is a random guess, but I bet if you let me pick and choose from the 101-120 Alliances, I'd be able to make a top 10 alliance without much trouble - there's that much inefficiency in the system right now.

Oh, it's terribly inefficient. That's not the point. Just like the top 100 Alliances don't represent the top 2000 players, not by a long shot. Just like I feel SHIELD is the top alliance by a comfortable margin, but I don't think they are necessarily the 20 best players in the game; there are members in other alliances who are equal to or better than a few of their members. There are plenty of great players who aren't in any alliance who would fit right in with a top 10 guild.

And if it was so easy to cherry-pick players from rank 101-200 alliances to make a top 10 alliance.....then someone would have done it. The closest would be something like the 5DV sub-alliances which have done well for the most part. However, there is no great metric to go by in the game to find out who is the better player, other than looking at their performance over the long haul. However, taking just a snapshot of a player tells you very little. If they have a good roster....is that because of good play or did they buy ISO/HP/covers? If they scored 1200+ in a PvP event, was that a one time thing or are they consistently good? Etc...part of the inefficiency is that there is no efficient method to rate players.

ZenBrillig wrote:

This is a problem that may well disappear once alliances mature. After all, if player A gets two covers that they can actually apply while player B gets three covers that get turned into ISO - who improved more?

What about new heroes, like Falcon? With each new hero, the best a non-alliance player can hope for is two covers, those in top alliances get all 3, and no one is converting those to ISO. And this will always be a problem, because Demiurge is continually releasing new heroes.

ZenBrillig wrote:

I think you're assuming that things will stabilize in some sort of static situation where everyone is in set alliances and nothing ever changes. I think there will always be new alliances of every stripe being formed, and there will always be turnover inside the top 100 alliances as people fall behind or drop out.

Not nothing ever changes....things *seldom* change. In the past month, how many spots do you think have opened up in a top 10 alliance? And how many people do you think would qualify to occupy those spots? You are right in the sense that nothing lasts forever, anyone thats played WoW or other MMOs realizes that the top guilds always change up members, disband/reform under different names etc....still, the process is slow, and top guilds usually turnover at a slow rate unless something dramatic (usually involving guild drama) happens.

scottee

This wouldn't be such an issue if people weren't trying to "keep up with the Joneses". Seriously, getting over that syndrome will make your life much much better.

The alliances don't stunt your progress. If you win 2 covers you didn't have, then that's progress you've made. They don't take away a cover you've already earned. There's no such thing as a global top 2000 ranking. That's why there's brackets in every event. You can be ranked #1 out of 500 or 5000 people.

Other people being in an alliance don't hurt your gameplay at all. When you face a level 141 lazy Thor, you would have just been facing a level 141 Hulk or Punisher instead. Fights about the same.

The only thing I don't like about the alliance rewards is that it incentivizes NOT spreading the game to your real life friends. I could have applied to a top alliance or made my own to play with my brother. I choose the latter. But if I had joined a top one, I wouldn't have tried to get my brother into the game.

Unknown

Yay! Another 'Alliance Reward only is unfair!' Thread!

Well, as someone who recently burned out enough for a MPQ break and spent $100+ on IAP, I think your analysis is slightly off; The solo whale player is not dead. Under the current Alliance structure, the Solo player is dying fast. Because let's face it: You are either in a 20-slot alliance or you grind your heart out for only 2 covers.

Once Again, I will type the message: this problem goes away as soon as D3 brackets the alliance rewards based on size.

Now to go back to not playing MPQ.

Breaks are nice.

Unknown

I think the alliances have made the game better, before I joined a alliance I would just fly under the radar collect rewards here and there, hope i missed the big boys. I have a more competitive edge now because your not only playing for yourself but for others also. Alliances have helped players get covers they wouldn't have got before and have increased scoring in PVP. A lot of people are able to attain the 1100 progression covers. heck the last 3 or 4 PVPS i have gone to the 1300 range and got the 4*s that's because of my alliance. Sure solo tournaments would be fun but the alliance feature has added a lot to the game.

Unknown

I like alliances but I want to address the 3-star cover concern, in particular the exchange between Metro and Puritas. Imo, that 3-star cover is integral to progression. It isn't merely a complaint of solo vs alliance play, but how drastic it is.

There's also a 50 HP reward. The op didn't seem to complain about it and neither would I. Alliances get 200 bonus ISO daily--again, I don't care. Up it to 2000 if you want, but that 3-star is too vital to be missing out on.

I mean I still only have 1 FB friend (I had 3 but 2 have stopped playing). Is it hard to find another? Prolly not, but I'm not too bothered by it either which way. If they told me that I needed more FB friends in order to get 3-star covers, then I might get more concerned.