Is winning Nick Fury still an option for my alliance?

Seasick Pirate

Currently we are #20 in Doctor’s Orders, placed #238 in God of Lies, and ranking #197 overall.

My alliance is full with 20/20 but we do have a couple inactive members as well as a few that just are not contributing very much overall. We’re trying to find stronger players to replace our weaker guys but some on the team fear that we’ve already fallen too far away from 100th place to get back up there and compete for Nick Fury.

Is he still obtainable for us or do we give up the ghost and not lose sleep over it? My biggest worry is that anyone who has a good enough roster and able to put the time into this game has already joined an alliance, leaving us stuck with what we’ve got.

Of course I’ve been trying to recruit members through this site, but is there anything else my alliance can do to improve our chances (winning, obviously)? What do we need to be placing on the remaining events for us to pull back into the top 100? I know this is a competition, so giving advice to the opponents is counter-intuitive but any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Spoit

I am not sure how realistic that is, without switching out large swaths of your alliance. you're going to need to do a kitty of a lot better than top 100 in the other tournaments to even have a chance.

Wil88

There are still good players out there looking for a good alliance. We just picked up our 20th member tonight, and his scores in the current events are great. We jumped up to around 50th in Season1 and we were in the low 90s prior. (the new members points count right away, not just what they earn once they have joined).

We also have restrictions on our members (being F2P Veterans), so there were plenty looking for an alliance who didn't qualify for ours.

Keep looking, and good luck.

Nemek

I think we've seen with some of the fairly new up-start alliances (X-Men and S.T.E.A.L.T.H., specifically, but others too) that alliance allegiances are not as set in stone as many people would think and there are likely to be very good players out there still.

Either way, I don't think very many 20/20 alliances are eliminated from being in the top 100, especially if they are willing to drop a couple of inactive members. Also, with the SHIELD Simulator scores taken into account, it can often be very misleading as to how high your potential really is, since many people haven't started to do much of that in earnest.

Unknown

For those right on the verge of top 100, I suspect a lot will come down to the points earned in the versus training. You could probably make up for a lost event or 2 through points there, but it would be tight.

If it were me, I'd push pretty hard for a week and see how much higher you can climb. If it looks feasible, keep pushing and recruit heavily. If it's not feasible, I'd still recruit heavily and lay the groundwork to be an alliance that can earn the rewards for season 2.

Twysta

There's still over half the season to go so there's definitely still a chance.

Unknown

My alliance is top 50 ..has been around top 30-60 the entire time. I am actually worried about LOSING top 100 a little..because there is no penalty for team swapping at the last moment except for looking like jerks kicking ppl at the last second. Add to that the fact that your real scores are greatly obfuscated by the lack of clarity in shield training and teams in the top 50 aren't honestly as safe as they might think....especially if, say, 5 ppl are scoring really well and your alliance is about to get top 120...101+ alliance reward isn't worth complaining about missing...so its worthwhile for all those ppl to boot and swap in accordance with an understanding that alliances go back right after rewards drop.

I do.t know how many alliances would REALLY put in that effort or be that aggressive of thinking, but even the thought of it puts me a little on edge. There are some rather low scores in my alliance, and I'd never think of kicking or asking ppl.to leave, even at the risk or rewards...as its part of why I normally hate alliance type setups, but if we somehow dropped out of top 100 due to team shifts on the last day or two I would be pretty unhappy.

So yea, you can certainly break 100 if you can wither swap ppl out, you guys have a low shield score right now, or you score top 10 the rest of the way each event. I doubt the last one is possible, so you will have to rely on #1 or #2.

I also suspect there will be enough alliances trying to get that artificial push the last few days that d3 PROBABLY should not allow ppl to leave an alliance and rejoin within, say 3-5 days of the end of a season. The idea of ppl pushing teammates out at the last second as part of a game meta just sounds brutally uncool.

Seasick Pirate

^ You bring up some really good points in your post. Much appreciated! This is the first game like this I've ever played so I'm still just trying to understand it!'a structure - though it seems like others here are in the same boat.

As a player/by-stander, I feel like the big Season 1 reward should have been a progression reward. Maybe have Season 1 a tournament that only alliances can enter. Once you enter, you cannot modify your alliance or you are booted and must start over. Of course this would naturally lead to it's own unique set of problems but at least it would feel more of a team effort with a unified goal to work towards. But that's probably just my way of complaining because I'm not a #1 ranking player.

Spoit

There's enough alliance drama floating around today without compounding the actual prize onto it

Unknown

Seasick Pirate wrote:

^ You bring up some really good points in your post. Much appreciated! This is the first game like this I've ever played so I'm still just trying to understand it!'a structure - though it seems like others here are in the same boat.

As a player/by-stander, I feel like the big Season 1 reward should have been a progression reward. Maybe have Season 1 a tournament that only alliances can enter. Once you enter, you cannot modify your alliance or you are booted and must start over. Of course this would naturally lead to it's own unique set of problems but at least it would feel more of a team effort with a unified goal to work towards. But that's probably just my way of complaining because I'm not a #1 ranking player.

I don't think locking the rosters is feasible. One month is a long time in terms of a game, aside from the very few top alliances, I'm sure that most alliances have some problem with inactives. Since there's no way to tell ahead of time how active the alliance is going to be in a month, I think you have to let players move.

Also, the CEO of Demiurge said this on VentureBeat:

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.

So the design intent is for alliances to be somewhat fungible.

Unknown

ZenBrillig wrote:

Also, the CEO of Demiurge said this on VentureBeat:

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.

So the design intent is for alliances to be somewhat fungible.

I found that quote incredibly odd. It's going to undermine people's loyalty to alliances, not encourage it.

Unknown

Ben Grimm wrote:

I found that quote incredibly odd. It's going to undermine people's loyalty to alliances, not encourage it.

Well, it's only odd if you think of alliances in social terms - if you think of them as sports teams, well, GM's are always looking to trim the fat and bring in that shiny new free agent.

Unknown

ZenBrillig wrote:

Ben Grimm wrote:

I found that quote incredibly odd. It's going to undermine people's loyalty to alliances, not encourage it.

Well, it's only odd if you think of alliances in social terms - if you think of them as sports teams, well, GM's are always looking to trim the fat and bring in that shiny new free agent.

But it cuts both ways. If they'll cut you that easily you'll also bolt that easily. And it also gives an incentive to stuff that can hurt the alliance, like attacking your alliance-mates so they're the ones cut.

But, in any case, I think the social incentive is ultimately going to be stronger than the "perform or be cut" incentive, especially considering how the awards are divided up. The argument works for a few of the top alliances, but not the people aiming for top 50 or 100.

Unknown

I fully expect that in the last few days of Season 1 alliances on the cusp of top 100 will be ruthless about cutting non-performers and replacing them with people on higher point totals coming up from smaller alliances. There will be people who wake up to discover at the last second they are out of an alliance and got no Nick Fury and no alliance season reward at all, and the forum drama will be incredible. It makes me glad for two things- my alliance is very safely inside the top 100 and I'm one of my alliance's top scorers.

I wonder if the alliances gunning for #1 will also stoop to the tactic of replacing their bottom scorers. If done late, that's going to be really harsh for people who worked hard all month expecting to easily be in Nick Fury range only to have to scramble quickly to get back into an alliance at the end of the month.

Personally I think they should make it so alliances only get the points earned by people while they are in your alliances. This might lead to a wave of kick/replace at the start of a new season, but that's probably better than the current method.

Spoit

Don't some of the top alliances already move their rosters around with their affiliate ones?

Unknown

Zhirrzh wrote:

I fully expect that in the last few days of Season 1 alliances on the cusp of top 100 will be ruthless about cutting non-performers and replacing them with people on higher point totals coming up from smaller alliances. There will be people who wake up to discover at the last second they are out of an alliance and got no Nick Fury and no alliance season reward at all, and the forum drama will be incredible. It makes me glad for two things- my alliance is very safely inside the top 100 and I'm one of my alliance's top scorers.

I wonder if the alliances gunning for #1 will also stoop to the tactic of replacing their bottom scorers. If done late, that's going to be really harsh for people who worked hard all month expecting to easily be in Nick Fury range only to have to scramble quickly to get back into an alliance at the end of the month.

Personally I think they should make it so alliances only get the points earned by people while they are in your alliances. This might lead to a wave of kick/replace at the start of a new season, but that's probably better than the current method.

Top 20 alliance wouldn't do that....not for the pittance that is the #1 vs #100. I truly am worried about 100 though. Right now, @61 , and the difference between 56 and 65 is a mere 1.5k points. That's less than 100 pts per a player. Other than the top 30-40 I think everyone needs to worry, as there are certainly at least 200 20/20 alliances by now. That's why I am trying to make sure I get 1100+every event even though I couldn't care less about the solo rewards in the event (not totally true...30-40 tokens would give a pretty good chance at pulling a fury whenever he comes out). To kinda help carry the low scorers atm in my alliance in case they stay that way.

Plz devs, have a bp event so that the 1100 can mean something (needs to be black). Or how about...a human torch event with bp as the reward?

Edit: and yea, something really should be done to avoid the last second kick fest that will probably happen. I think locking ppl in for the last week of the season would be good enough imo. Creates a cutoff point, so the kick fest will occur then.instead of later, but it at least mitigates it somewhat. I wouldn't mind what you suggest...its just that's nit totally fair for ppl in 5 man orders waiting to get "picked up" only to effectively have thier past scores mean nothing (and make ppl less likely to adopted them anyway.

rbdragon

When I started my alliance, I wasn't on the board at all and didn't really know how important they were going to be...my alliance is made up of my son, wife, and two nephews. Needless to say, I've never won anything really as I'm the only one who really plays all the time.

At this point, I'd probably be willing to be a "hired gun" if I was thought of as good enough to be so....

Unknown

Probably not much chance. But is that really a problem?

IMO we can have 2 possible futures:

1. Fury will be kept mostly inaccessible -- maybe just prize for S2, S3, etc for a single cover. It means he's useless ballast on the roster.
2. Fury will get regular top-tear prize like X and IW -- then you can obtain him with less work than season requires and this one purple will be mostly redundant. (unless that one color is kept for seasons; but I doubt you'd play Fury in foreseeable future in any case.)

Unknown

I wouldn't mind seeing a system where only points earned while under an alliance's banner would count.

People could still move around but if you earned 900 points as a free agent and 100 more as a member of an alliance you only count for that 100, encouraging you to stay around so the next event will give full points.

There would need to be a clause that someone leaving would still take their points with them (as they do now) to prevent weird farming practices.

The game has nothing that encourages alliance loyalty. Maybe give each alliance the choice.

Choose Loyalty to encourage long term members to stick around.
Choose Competitive to remain open to a quickly rotating roster that can swap people in and out with no penalty to score for maximum scoring potential.

Twysta

Ben Grimm wrote:

ZenBrillig wrote:

Also, the CEO of Demiurge said this on VentureBeat:

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.

So the design intent is for alliances to be somewhat fungible.

I found that quote incredibly odd. It's going to undermine people's loyalty to alliances, not encourage it.

Yeah that quote actually worries me a bit. It suggests to me that they don't really appreciate loyalty, however it could just be taken slightly out of context of his intended meaning, I hope he's just articulated his opinion wrong rather than that being a definitive statement.

Unknown

People who are loyal to their alliance are loyal to the game. As much grumbling about the state of the game is going on right now, if I were in an alliance that decided they no longer needed me and kicked me to the curb for any reason, I would find that an excellent excuse to stop playing completely