Behind the scenes of a "Winning Alliance" - The X-Men

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ Alliances
1

I recently posted about the new Alliance I joined today. The X-Men.

I must admit what I have been through is absolutely amazing. And here is what is happening behind the scenes in some competitive Alliances.

Here is how it went :

I read the post of Johnny, Commander of X-Men and applied to join the Alliance. Explained my strategy as a player thouroughly and told him that if my application was of interest to him, I could join for Season 2, as I am eagerly expecting Yellow Cover from Spiderman which helps a lot in winning and recovering damages. Gave all the points and rankings I was reaching on a regular basis (Top 2-5 in PvE, Top 10-20 in PvP), so was not misleading. Johnny told me I was well spoken, he appreciated that, and my roster was Godly, and he liked my dedication to the game. I also could read that they never kicked people out of the Alliances and he wanted me to join the Alliance earlier than Season 2. I thought his manners were professional, so I agreed and was quite happy to join a strong team. With my integration, the team was becoming Number 1 in Season 1.

I was invited to join Linechat on my phone, so as to remain connected with the team. Was asked not to talk about problem in the main room but privately.

What I could read from the chat conversation was simply astounding.

Right before writing this, I’ve read the thread about Alliance swapping and how the members were being moved to increase results and rankings in the end and was really intrigued by Johnny’s comments and how he was enclined to appreciate “gentlemen”.

The members of X-Men shield and unshield continuously so as to improve the results, use boosts like crazy (up to 9 boosts per match), they are being pushed by the leaders to fight as hell (the main target is 5D, that’s amazing how much hatred is expressed all tournament long). It’s hard to believe this is an electronic game.

Abstracts :

“I have walkyourpath for 27, reckless for 41 and captain ameruka for 25, that last one is personal”

“Complete trust between us and a common goal to bury 5D”.

“I stand ready to deploy, engage and destroy the enemy Johnny”

“I’m going to be shielding and unshielding every 30 min till the end of the event to clear incoming”

“X2 please beat 5DP”

“More importantly X1 beat 5DV”

So when I explained to the Commander that I could not compete that way because of my lack of winners (Yellow Spidey and Red Thor to max them out), he advised me to use boosts. That each game was lasting less than 1 minute this way. Earlier on, a member was proud to announce he was spending $200 a week on boosts… So I said I was not OK with spending so much in boosts (just to “bury an Alliance”, because I do not care less about the prizing, I already had all the covers). I finished 8th in my bracket, with 940 points. Had 19000+ points in the Daken PvE meanwhile, performing 4th on the Alliance for that. 9000+ in Season 1.

They kicked me out of the Alliance, as I was just explaining that I could give my spot to someone else as I have been offered positions in other Top 5 Alliances before.

I just wanted to make sure I’d have another Alliance before I left this one. They told me they “were not here to review my options with other alliances”. They offered me X-Men 2 Alliance which is nothing comparable of course, members are more casual and their rosters are not balanced.

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What’s the conclusion to all that ?

MPQ is a great game, but D3P must take care of competition, and must define boundaries to avoid that kind of behaviour. Many guys will quit the game if they are the victims of such conducts. This is not sports, this is tyranny.

People mentioned how some members of X-Men were hypocrits, well, more than that, they manipulate people to serve Johnny’s ambition to be “the best of the world”, and if he is not pleased, he is definitely mad at you and bash you on his main chat board. If you try to give your point of view, you are kicked out the chat room. That is a nice way of considering democracy.

His words :

ANNOUNCEMENT :

I take full responsibility for making a bad choice. I brought in someone who seemed promising named Arktos. It was a poor choice. Recruiting is difficult and draining they can’t all be winners like the other champions I brought on.
I have NEVER cut anyone I’m giving his a chance to leave on his own. I need a replacement ASAP if anyone can help.
…
What good is a top roster if you have no heart and just want a top alliance and don’t wanna work for your spot ? (Should I mention the tourney was ending at 6 am in the morning my time ?)

In the few hours I was in the Alliance, 4 new members joined, and 3 were out of the Alliance (including me). Nazarith spends his time answering application requests, that’s a full-time job. Is it still a game we are talking about ?

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Everyone will now have a clearer opinion about the X-Men Alliance. Members are being manipulated to go into a war (it was mentioned also in the Alliance swap thread).

I hope I can find a good Alliance that is at the same time passionate and sane. This game is really fun. But it’s a Make3 Tile Breaking.

What do you guys think about this ?

2

Holy wow.

I mean, I think it’s kinda bad form to air dirty laundry on the forum, but in this case, just… wooooow.

3

It’s mere information and warning about what can come worst of MPQ.

Acting like a perfect gentlemen on the forum can hide terrible aspects.

4

While unfortunate, not shocking. Especially if you’ve read the alliance swapping thread. Eeks

On a completely unrelated note, we are recruiting icon_e_biggrin.gif

5

People fight over crazy things. Rivalry is what makes competition interesting. Respect is something you give to someone you can beat 95% of the time for being a good loser. As long as MPQ doesn’t make news along the lines of ‘player dies while playing World of Warcraft’ I think it’s all good.

6

I used to play driving… icon_rolleyes.gif

7

Well we all read posts here and there from disgruntled ex(men)members but this… is unbelievable icon_e_wink.gif
i have to agree with the OP though as some of these “commanders” take the game way too seriously. For what? Really?

Competition is all well and good but there’s a line to be crossed, an evil crooked line and a couple of alliances have already jumped across that line. All i can say is

PLEASE DON’T MURDER ANYONE IN REAL LIFE OVER THIS. THINK OF THE CHILDREN. WILL SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN.

8

I see your driving and I raise you, one earthquake. Your move holy man

9

wow, talk about burnout inducing behavior. Thank god my alliance is nothing like that. I don’t mind being in the 40-80 range or whatever we happen to be.

10

Better the alliance forum than derailing an on topic thread for the Nth time. Not naming any names… icon_rolleyes.gif

11

Wow , I thought some commander of the Xmen is bad enough on the forums ,can’t believe it’s worse. And he even said their chat is very friendly. Pffft.
I’ll check if we have available slot in our sister alliances.

12

Yep, I can’t think of what you could be referring to. icon_e_biggrin.gif
If it’s something bad, I’ll assume it’s TU1, because it usually is.

13

At least we know the next reality show for A&E. MPQ Alliance Battles. Not as catchy as Game of Arms, but thats what publicists are for.

14

This is really sad. If that’s the kind of behavior that’s expected in a top alliance, I’d much rather be in a mere top100 alliance, where you can play at your leisure.

15

Well, before joining them, I always thought that the Top 5 Alliances were made of brilliant rosters, that’s why I improved mine all the time. Mind you, I have 39 chars, 28 of which are maxed out.

I thought 5D were the evil and the others Angels. So I thought X-Men were angels too. Johnny seems to be a very cool guy in the beginning. I noticed he was a manipulator immediately though (I am a strategic marketing manager so I have a radar for them). But since I could see he was hardworking pointwise, I thought he was giving a good example. And thought that was positive.

So, in my naive strategy, I have been spending an average of $60/day in the last 100 days, and from 1 to 6-7 hours playing each day. Call that dedication. Yet, I don’t have the heart, nor do I want to “work” for a high spot… No kidding ?

In my “naive” mind, reaching 1300-1400 in pvp was only possible with the auto-regenerating Yellow Spidey and Strength of LT at lvl 141. Because you can play endlessly with auto-regeneration (if you don’t want to use tons of health packs). When I reach 900+ in pvp, that’s the kind of opposite team I meet. I do not struggle then.

One thing I forgot to mention about Johnny’s predictions, and you’ll all be happy to read that : “In 8 weeks, everybody will have his chars maxed out, then it comes down to heart”, so I should not bother levelling my chars.

HailMary has just emailed me with tons of good tips to help me improve in pvp. I’ll follow his advice (till I can level my spidey and Lthor).

My point in publishing the history of X-Men is that I did not want good players to think there is only skill and constant good work and motivation behind a Top 5.

S.H.I.E.L.D is (please confirm I am right) a strong and “clean” Top team. I’ve been applying there for 2 weeks now, sending one of its members the progression of my roster (it helped me find out my improvements, and I was very pleased). Maybe the good teams could publish some articles on the forum to motivate the newbies to improve and struggle for this game. Many burn out because it is a play to win mostly, but many old players built their roster out of time and sweat.

I got stuck in the MMR thing, and only discovered too late that there were things to be done to avoid facing always stronger enemies and pay fortunes to play MPQ.

16

Well that’s certainly…interesting…

17

we all know who he means, wink wink

18

devil’s advocate observation
a) while it’s fun for me to read gossips, it’s never advisable to wash your dirty linens in public.
b) you should have know you need to perform when you applied to X-Men. not surprised when they kick you for failing to make the mark.
c) why apply to SHIELD when you cannot/notwillingto be competitive? it just felt greedy and put SHIELD in a spot now that you announced this publicly.

it felt like you should join one of the umpteen other Alliances who mostly play for fun (read: all other alliances except the top 3). less(no) pressure to perform with funloving people all around.

19

Not going to comment on X-Men’s inner workings, but if you joined Ace of Blades, kudos! That’s the single alliance I’d go to if I were stranded alone somehow!

Now, about LT and Spidey, not sure what you mean by auto-regen, Spidey healing takes tons of match time you could spend on winning more matches, so not many top teams actually run Spidey constantly.

Spidey is expected to be balanced sooner than cMagneto, so I’d invest into cMagneto instead and run him alongside a good strike tile character (Punisher/Patch). There’s no way Magneto can lose in his current form, and I happily utilize that in my own pushes, offense is rarely a problem and defense means naught anyway, shields are the ultimate defense (sadly lol).
Actually one of the best teams for fast play, shield-hopping and reaching higher point scores is Patch/Magneto with 5 red. If you care about higher scores, anyway. If not, more power to you! I completely agree that no one and no thing should pressure a player into an uncomfortable pace unless the player is willing themselves.

LT is good on both offense/defense but slowish for my tastes (but I don’t have him in a usable condition and am not missing anything, personally). Not all top players have a complete LT either, just check top alliances’ rosters.

Edit: > One thing I forgot to mention about Johnny’s predictions, and you’ll all be happy to read that : “In 8 weeks, everybody will have his chars maxed out, then it comes down to heart”, so I should not bother levelling my chars.
Not sure what that means, either, as the ratio of newer players to older players is always high and will stay high.

20

Not all of the top alliances operate this way. The way I see it, the best we are going to do and remain a “normal” alliance is 4th place.

You’ve got S.H.I.E.L.D, the ultra elite. Kinda like Wolvie, they’re the best they are at what they do, and props to them. Then, you’ve got the 2 gimmick alliances 5DV and X-Men with all of there sister alliances. Sure, that is going to work well as you are basically making your player pool much deeper, but who really wants to deal with hopping around and being told when it’s time to move to another alliance?

We have fun in our alliance, and if a guy has RL life obligations while a PVP is going on, we don’t flip out about it. Of course we want to win, but we’re realistic and can see that 4th is pretty much gonna be the top spot unless we want to completely change the dynamics of the alliance, and we’re fine with that.

At least until AceofDjangosTacos is formed! icon_evil.gif