I know a lot of groups are struggling with player retention at this moment, but I want to say having players join other active coalitions only to try and advertise their coalition and then immediately leave is incredibly poor sportsmanship.
My coalition recently had this happen, from a player representing a top 10 coalition. It would be one thing if there were only a few active players, but my coalition has a strong and consistent following. I hope attemps to sabotage other coalitions do not become a trend; I like to think of us all, despite our competition, as an honorable bunch.
Okay, rant over, thanks for listening.
There was some chatter about that in the https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/81259/player-retention#latest thread (there was a lot of talk about a lot of things in there lol).
Seems desperate times call for desperate measures for a lot of coalitions.
This hasn’t happened to us in a while but I was annoyed that poaching was happening like this. If we decide that this isn’t behavior we want in-game then steps should be taken to prevent it. Of course, simply adding some basic and previously-discussed functionality would likely make this obsolete.
Agreed. I hope that both players and developers will agree that ultimately this is not in the best interest of the longevity of this game, nor competitive comradery amongst coalitions. I've seen games where this behavior was allowed to thrive, and it can become really viscious.
I'm hoping, as the forums have the ears of the top coalitions, that their leaders will pursue the honorable path of discouraging poaching behavior amongst active coalitions, keep an active watch, and penalize their players who do so.
This is an interesting conversation, that as an alliance leader, we tackle frequently — so I hope that you all will welcome my perspective openly without attacking me.
There are not a lot of open avenues for recruitment in this game. The forum is not a big avenue. There are not a lot of new users. Forums are not the most up-to-date communication tool in gaming. MTGPQ players aren’t seeking this venue for information. The Facebook pages are unofficial, same with the reddits, Discords, etc. However there are tens of thousands of coalitions, most of which are led by inactive leaders.
At one point there was a supposed purge. You will never, ever convince me it was done, because the numbers at that time went up, not down. When new players come in, many of them join random coalitions. We seek these coalitions with inactive leaders and try to engage these players. You should, too, because these players, without an active coalition will eventually lose interest in the game and quit.
When that happens, the game doesn’t grow.
Every now and then, we make mistakes and come across an active coalition. I can’t speak for other groups, but I know mine politely shows ourselves out, or we make new friends where we send players who don’t want to be part of a big alliance. We have tons of friends we’ve made this way and it’s great for the game.
However, I made a point above that I want to address:
There are likely tens of thousands of coalitions which are either dead or have 1-2 active players in them with an inactive leader. This game should have a recourse for this. Almost every other game does.
It shouldn’t be something that is unknown and inconveniences players, like them having to contact support. After one month inactive, leadership is dropped down to the highest scorer. After 90 days of an entire coalition being inactive, the entire coalition is dissolved.
This would really go a long way in ending the confusion we see here.
I agree with some of your points, recruiting from severely inactive coalitions (example rank 500 or higher), is fine. Keeping players involved is something I have no problem with. The proaching I'm complaining about is what is happening to already competitive coalitions, to use the title of being a top coalition to cannibalize competition.
I disagree with the auto-drop. It's entirely unnecessary and booting players or shifting leadership without the possibility of communication is not okay.
I've had players in my coalition that had legitimate reasons for being inactive and communicated it. I don't want an automated program to override the decisions of a coalition leader in the ability to keep them. Players can always leave a coalition if they are dissatisfied with the experience
If I or another player was seriously injured or unable to access mtgpq for some reason, I'd like to not lose my coalition/etc on top of it.
We all seem to agree that additional tools are needed, in communication, maintenance and recruiting, which is great. I agree that cleanup is needed, however flagging a coalition as inactive might be a softer solution than deleting them.
The first coalition I joined had its leader leave. He was kind enough to announce his departure (this is before coalition leadership could be passed to another member) and an active core of us decided to stay. I had already lost my coalition points once when I was locked out of the game for a month and was considered inactive and booted (I rejoined when I had access to the game again), so initially I wanted to stay to keep my points, but we quickly learned that as players went inactive we simply couldn’t do anything to grow and we created a new coalition. My point is that there is this punishment when changing coalitions (more or less important depending on who you ask) that might be keeping some players in otherwise dead coalitions if all they want is to join all the events and they don’t care about top prizes so much. I would advocate for a coalition system that tracks individual contributions across coalitions.
I would hope, in a rare, emergency case like that, your loyal coalitionmate who the team was passed down to would give it back when you returned.
However, when I took over my coalition, tinykitty, last summer, they really could have used a failsafe like this. They were a top 25 coalition and their leader ghosted. No one could get in. The current players didn’t want the responsibility of leadership, and even if they did, the leader was gone to hand it down. The only recourse was for someone to abandon their all time score and let me in, then several members of the coalition had to send tickets requesting leadership be passed to the top scorer who then passed it to me. We could then let the player who left back in after kicking the original leader. It was ridiculous.
I'm glad to hear your situation was solvable and it all worked out.
As tedious as it sounds, it looks like the situation was resolvable by a few players in the coalition submitting tickets requesting the inactive leadership be changed. That sounds like a less messier way to resolve the situation than relying on an automated system to make the decisions.
I think most players would agree, with the amount of outstanding glitches unresolved, that introducing a new system designed to self-govern coalitions would be a dangerous decision. @Bubbles_CS idea of merely flagging them so new players are aware and can avoid is a less risky option.
Except it wasn’t that easy. We had to go through a lot of red tape to get there. And they had me, the forum mod, who had to ask Brigby how to even do that. Even then it took 2 months. Does a regular coalition know how to do that? Would it even occur to them to come here and ask for help? Or go to support?
A FAQ informing players of what to do in a situation like that would be important.
Half a year ago there was a glitch where an automatic system booted every player from their coalition. The only way the developers could solve that was a reboot from a previous save file. Does not raise confidence in a system like that being glitch free or feasible.
Ultimately this is somewhat off-topic. The point of this thread was to discourage poaching competitive coalitions.
I agree it's poor form to poach players from active coalitions. It shouldn't be done. And it goes beyond bad taste and into the bizarre if the primary goal truly is, as has been suggested, to actually sabotage those coalitions.
I also agree that advertising active coalitions to non-coalition-engaged players in inactive coalitions is solidly healthy for those players and for the game, given that the in-game coalition tools are lacking.
The group of coalitions I'm a part of (TP9) finds both of the above points to be obvious and uncontroversial as a matter of policy. I obviously can't speak for other groups.
But if anyone feels like your active coalition is a poaching target, why not start by talking directly with the person responsible and their group? Then, whether you foiled their nefarious plot to bring down your coalition, or they approached you in error, you'll actually know the facts according to Mystery Poacher X, and we can all respond accordingly.
Agreed. It would be easiest to just outright disclose the details on the forums, but that is a rule violation.
In my coalition's case, it was poached by a representative of a top 10 coalition, but I do not recall who the leader of that coalition is --I knew when I politely declined a friendly request to merge my coalition with theirs years ago, I also believe there has been leadership change since then, obviously their tactics have changed.
I've been a leader of top coalitions in other games where aggressive poaching was permitted and it drove players away, quickly leading to abandoned, dead games.
It's highly unlikely the developers will do anything to limit or discourage this kind of activity, so I believe it is up to us, as player leaders of the game, to set that standard.
You could always message me privately. I have a good relationship with most of the big groups and will handle these things confidentially, and put you in touch with the appropriate person once I get their permission. I believe this is a healthier outcome for the community as a whole.
I'll definitely keep that in mind. Thank you
What are some of the ways that other games cope with the inactive coalition problem?
Great question! In 2 games I played in, the developers didn't manage it and it got super ugly, they're both dead games now.
I've seen others with the ability to block poaching players from rejoining a coalition, or players have to request to join. Either could be a useful tool.
Pantagruel said: What are some of the ways that other games cope with the inactive coalition problem?
bken1234 said: Pantagruel said: What are some of the ways that other games cope with the inactive coalition problem? I mentioned these in my post above.
bken1234 said: This is an interesting conversation, that as an alliance leader, we tackle frequently — so I hope that you all will welcome my perspective openly without attacking me. There are not a lot of open avenues for recruitment in this game. The forum is not a big avenue. There are not a lot of new users. Forums are not the most up-to-date communication tool in gaming. MTGPQ players aren’t seeking this venue for information. The Facebook pages are unofficial, same with the reddits, Discords, etc. However there are tens of thousands of coalitions, most of which are led by inactive leaders. At one point there was a supposed purge. You will never, ever convince me it was done, because the numbers at that time went up, not down. When new players come in, many of them join random coalitions. We seek these coalitions with inactive leaders and try to engage these players. You should, too, because these players, without an active coalition will eventually lose interest in the game and quit. When that happens, the game doesn’t grow. Every now and then, we make mistakes and come across an active coalition. I can’t speak for other groups, but I know mine politely shows ourselves out, or we make new friends where we send players who don’t want to be part of a big alliance. We have tons of friends we’ve made this way and it’s great for the game. However, I made a point above that I want to address: There are likely tens of thousands of coalitions which are either dead or have 1-2 active players in them with an inactive leader. This game should have a recourse for this. Almost every other game does. It shouldn’t be something that is unknown and inconveniences players, like them having to contact support. After one month inactive, leadership is dropped down to the highest scorer. After 90 days of an entire coalition being inactive, the entire coalition is dissolved. This would really go a long way in ending the confusion we see here.
I would like to call out ＊redacted* for attempted poaching from my top-500, active coalition.
**Mod note: Removed reference to specific alliance name. - fight4thedream