Overall, I now believe that Alliance Ranking is a good thing

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

Let me say that, when alliance ranking rewards first started in the tournaments, I was extremely skeptical. Totally against the idea in fact. The alliance ranking rewards basically took one of the 3*star covers in our normal placement rewards, and made alliance ranking a requirement to getting that 3rd cover.

Initially, that seemed like a kick in the nuts. We basically have to go through an extra hurdle to get that third cover. On face value, it didn’t seem like a good change.

After a few tournaments and the most recent Simulation PVE event, I came to realize that, the alliance ranking actually means that we get to take things easy. We no longer have to fight tooth and nail to get all the important prizes.

Without Alliance Ranking rewards, we have to fight-
PVP Tournaments- Top 5 to get 3x 3* covers
PVE Events- Top 10 to get 3x 3* covers

With Alliance Ranking rewards
PVP Tournaments- Top 10 to get 2x 3* covers
PVE Events- Top 50 to get 2x 3* covers

You also need alliance ranking top 100 for PVP, and top 250 for PVE.
This means that a maximum of (100x20=2000) people can get prizes for PVP, and (250x20=5000) people can get prizes for PVE. (Correct me if I got the numbers wrong.)

In simple terms, it’s a lot less stressful for people who can’t play as intensively or spend as much time.

In addition, the Alliance ranking does bring a few nice ISO and HP prizes. ISO especially.

I now believe that this system is beneficial to us.

I have noticed some people having complaints about the top Alliance prize. The top prize for that single best alliance is 500HP, while every other alliance gets 100HP and below. Personally, I don’t see that as a huge problem. Overall, it is about teamwork.

If your entire team has the dedication and the abilities to work hard, to get the top score, then you deserve those 500HP. In theory, it is about dedication, preparation, and teamwork that determines the top score. But in reality, I’m thinking that luck plays a large part in which team can get that top score lol. But ultimately, it is a team effort.

I happen to know of this female dog in heat that moans every time it fails to get into the first place. Real crapper.

Anyway, what I want to say is, be thankful to your team for carrying you this far. Whatever your alliance rank placement is, you shouldn’t have any regrets as long as you all worked hard.

As long as you and your team managed to get a good spot and get that 3rd 3*star cover, what does it matter if your team didn’t come in first? What does it matter if you didn’t score as high as S.H.I.E.L.D.?

Too bad about the 500HP. But hey, you still get that nice shiny 2000 ISO, right?

Still, I’m waiting to see what plans to the devs have for this. For the past few tourneys, they have mixed in a few with Alliance Ranking, and a few without Alliance Ranking. Now, I can see that they intend to take the trend of making all tournaments Alliance based. (Except for Lightning Rounds.)

I guess only time will tell if this will be a permanent thing for all future long tourneys.

What do you guys think? Would you prefer Alliance Ranking in your tourneys? Or would you prefer them taken out?

Most ranking Alliance now have 20 member slots. The price for each slot seems rather steep in my honest opinion. Those of you Commanders who paid for the slots, would you consider it a worthwhile purchase?

Would you do it again if for some reason, the max slots increased to say, 25 or 30?

Would you consider this system as, “pay-to-win”, seeing how buying member slots increases your chances at the rewards?

I personally have an idea. Alliance PROGRESSION, instead of Alliance RANKING rewards.

Basically, as long as we and our whole team hit a certain point threshold, we all get static rewards.

In my honest opinion, EVERYTHING in this game is a CONTEST! A competition where only one out of many can get good prizes. It’s the whole basis of this game. That much I know. But seriously, it gets tiresome when every bloody thing is a competition.

So here’s my idea. How about, teamwork instead? No worrying about the other teams outdoing you. Just you and your team. Hit the targets, fulfill the mission criteria, and you get the prizes! No need to worry about who goddamn comes first, who comes last.

What do you guys think of this idea? Alliance Progression rewards instead of Alliance Ranking rewards?

Also, some mission involved criteria. For example:
Defeat Venom total of 100 times across your team to get one 3* star cover.
Deal a total of 1000,000 match damage across all battles for all teams to get 2000 ISO?

What do you guys think?

2

This statement depends heavily on your perspective. If you’re a member of a 20-person alliance (or even 10), yes, it’s trivial to hit the top 100. If, on the other hand, you’re a member of a 5-person alliance, you have to fight way harder to get that third cover than you did in the past, or you’re locked out of it entirely, depending on who else is in your alliance.

As currently structured, alliance rewards are a great thing – for forum members, who can much more easily self-organize and pool resources to create large alliances, which have an overwhelming numbers advantage. For people who aren’t members of the forum? Not so much.

3

Would you consider it as a pay-to-win system then? As in pay more slots, win more?

4

I agree with you that forum membership gates high-achieving alliances, but I would point out that forum membership is entirely free.

5

Alliances are currently in their infancy, and if the ability to search for and advertise your alliance becomes easier (as well as a donation system for expanding your alliance), then I think the image of pay 2 win will dwindle a bit and it will become more fair for those who aren’t active on the forums.

6

Apologies to SHIELD and Djangos, but I really do think the 500HP reward is over the top. You can’t just say “just have fun and don’t worry about it” because every aspect of this game is competitive, and having a set of 20 players out of the whole game (or, even assuming that 3 Alliances are truly “competitive” for the top spot, 60; or even 100 players) get 400 ‘extra’ HP once or twice a week is just too much of a huge advantage that builds on itself to make things even more effortless for players who are already top tier.

7

As with any game that features Alliances/Guilds/Clans you tend to get the top players forming a group. If you’re not part of one those top teams then you’re left competing with everyone else for the scraps. As long as the game can still provide an enjoyable experience for the wider player base then there’s really not a problem with it. Moving one of the covers to alliance rewards might have been too much. However, they extend the rewards down far enough that a lot of players will still be able to obtain it, so it’s not too far out of balance. I think the devs just need to be careful to not make alliance rewards too exclusive.

8

I can see your point here. It really is a little over the top.

But if you don’t make the top team award rewarding enough, your teammates might not be willing to push harder.

So it’s a tough choice of where to place the balance, sigh…

9

I personally have an idea. Alliance PROGRESSION, instead of Alliance RANKING rewards.

Basically, as long as we and our whole team hit a certain point threshold, we all get static rewards.

In my honest opinion, EVERYTHING in this game is a CONTEST! A competition where only one out of many can get good prizes. It’s the whole basis of this game. That much I know. But seriously, it gets tiresome when every bloody thing is a competition.

So here’s my idea. How about, teamwork instead? No worrying about the other teams outdoing you. Just you and your team. Hit the targets, fulfill the mission criteria, and you get the prizes! No need to worry about who goddamn comes first, who comes last.

What do you guys think of this idea? Alliance Progression rewards instead of Alliance Ranking rewards?

Also, some mission involved criteria. For example:
Defeat Venom total of 100 times across your team to get one 3* star cover.
Deal a total of 1000,000 match damage across all battles for all teams to get 2000 ISO?

What do you guys think?

10

I like the idea of alliance progression rewards. It was suggested in one of the other threads during/after the first alliance tourney, but now that we’ve seen alliances in play for a couple tourneys, I think it wouldn’t hurt to experiment with that in an upcoming tourney.

Of course, I think the addition/removal of members during a tourney would have to be restricted. Otherwise, I sense some potential abuse attempts (high scorers jumping from alliance to alliance to help them out, then jumping back into their own for the final rewards).

11

I think the rewards are already off base ever since the first alliance rewards were given. Reducing possible *** covers for single player brackets. Limiting ** covers to a single color in some events, instead of the previously existing progression up to three potential ** covers. That is a severe limitation of rewards for unaffiliated players, which will inevitably be newer players, where **, and *** rewards are the most difficult to acquire to begin with.

And none of that even considers ISO and HP rewards, which simply widens the gap even further, and makes newer player progression that much more frustrating.

12

I am thinking that a system that tabulates total score based on total score EARNED by the members during their stay on your alliance would help solve that.

The current system tabulates total score based on TOTAL PLAYERS SCORE.

We could change it to tabulate by EARNED and PROGRESSED scores instead of total scores.

13

I am starting to see the alliance rewards in a slightly more favorable light.

With the advent of rubberbanding and scaling even rather new players could be very competitive and earn high placement rewards. These are systems designed to give everyone a shot at good rewards no matter how many days played or how strong your roster is.

The alliance rewards favor the organized, the well informed, the ones with HP to burn expanding out to 20, in short they are for the veterans.

Scaling + Rubberbanding = keep low to mid tier players happy
Alliance rewards = keep the veterans happy

14

Uhm.. no. While low-tier players may profit from the scaling mechanic, the mid-tier players are getting completely shafted by it. Mid-tier players still lack the punch that high-tier players have and they consistently get stonewalled by high-level enemies, lacking the raw power or the specific leveled character combinations that are required to power through that wall.

15

This is indeed a problem for the upper mids, My point was that scaling helps the newbier half of the player base more so than the more veteran half. I am willing to bet if you are at that wall you are farther along progression wise than the average player. And so I ask in your particular demographic, are alliance rewards helpful to you or do you feel they are out of your reach?

16

There needs to be less barrier to creating 20-man alliances given size still trumps everything else. DjangoUnbuffed would be nowhere competitive for #1 if they have even one less person, for example.

17

Who among you has taken our name in vain?

That said, EVERY alliance would be less competitive if for some reason they lost a member.Nobody is forcing anyone to join an alliance. Yes the rewards are nice, but if you just play the game and have fun doing it,then that’s all that matters. There are events multiple times a week. You can still get covers without been in an alliance. One less,yeah but D3 have to move forward.

Without moving on and introducing new ideas,the game will get stale,people will get bored and move onto the next game. Yes been in an alliance helps buts its not the end of everything good. Just cause our alliance won this time,doesn’t make us this big supergroup who will win every thing. With HailMary in our team,its a constant battle.

As for the 500 HP award been too much? Yeah i can see that, but it was still nice to get,and most people who think its too much,wouldn’t complain either if they got it. There will always be something wrong to complain about with this game,but that’s life,cant keep everyone happy all the time. We just have to take it and move on.

18

They are out of reach because the rewards needed to achieve any real progression or expansion are located at the top, where all the high-tier alliances reside. Without a ticket into those alliances (and the capability to stay on) those rewards are simply permanently out of reach. As for the capability of staying on, i.e. being a continued top-tier point contributor; try pulling that off if you’re a European player that does not feel like setting his alarm clock at 3 in the morning every other day and compromising your sleep schedule over a damn game.

Atleast for solo rewards there are the odd chance of ‘lucking out’ or the possibility of occasionally biting the bullet and getting up early to compete in the final run of an event where you know you have a realistic chance of finishing with high placement. With alliances, you either perform well consistently, or you get booted out in favor of someone that can be a more valued point contributor.

The shift of rewards from solo progression and solo placement to alliance placement really, really screws with the solo players too much. The scaling problems around the high-end of mid-tier only make it worse.

19

Well said. Since alliances started; I’ve watched many on this forum happy with all their winnings. Me, I haven’t won a damn thing in my 5 player alliance, so no… I am not a fan of the current alliance format, watching the rich get richer and making it harder for the solo player to advance.

All you 20 team alliances will surely be happy to:

  1. Have the opportunitey to get Black Hulk cover in the Fearless Defenders
  2. Likely win a Black Hulk cover

While me (with my 5 player alliance) any many many others will have no shot .

Look at most of the posts now; it’s mostly about alliances.

20

This “veteran” is not happy and figured that alliances would end up screwing me over somehow.

So … between rewards being taken away and moved over to alliance rewards and the god awful scaling/MMR; Im ready to stop grinding this game as much as I used to. Grinding for lesser/lower rewards is not fun.