My point is that even with the “extra ascension mat rolls” what have they gained if they’re not dominating cup rankings, alliance rankings, or event rankings? So really who is it hurting or bothering? I could understand the complaint about the extra ascension mats if mercs were completely dominating or even remotely dominating any part of the game, but they’re not. So the whole complaint of them getting extra ascension mats seems pretty mute since obviously they aren’t getting that many or we would see more mercs in any of the leaderboards(cups, alliance, and events).
There was a statement of sorts though, wasn’t there? I don’t have it to hand and can’t remember where I saw it, so please tell me if I’ve got it totally wrong, but weren’t there words to the effect of:
We’ve noticed that a whole bunch of players have been collecting waaaaaaay more ascension items than was intended, so we gotta put a stop to this before it gets out of control, if it isn’t already.
(I’m paraphrasing more than a little.)
If that was the gist of the statement, doesn’t that tell us that the Titan chest timer just didn’t do the job it was supposed to and that’s why this nerf is in the pipeline? It might amount to them welching on a deal, but if it was a deal that didn’t achieve what they thought it would…
Still, you’re right that SG has not won any prizes for their communication on this issue. I feel like there have been several issues recently where a little bit more communication could have helped quite a lot, and that communication just hasn’t come.
Bad SG! Go to your room! No supper for you!
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That argument doesn’t hold up. Obviously mercs are “completely dominating” the players below them, who don’t merc and haven’t collected those extra ascension items. (Who play the game the way it was intended to be played, technically.)
We should not worry only about hurting the feelings of the top 100 players (or alliances). There are only 100 of them.
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With the different issues in this game, lack of ascension items so you have to buy them, uneven tile generator and AW match making we are still focusing of this which only deals with a small amount of players??
I’ve never had to buy an ascension item, tiles are obviously random, and AW matchmaking seems to be working okay.
So yup, this is it.
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An easy? solution that allows people to merc without penalty in their home alliances and for all those who “do it for the community”
Synchronize the titans in all alliances and distribute the loot at the end of the time window. You will get the loot for the Titan of your current alliance.
“Fixes” issues in AW matching due to different Titan times aswell.
As Brobb suggests (maybe I misread the sarcasm, I frankly suck at such things) it’s not about cups, or rankings (though it’s certainly showing up in AW), or other things: it’s about the fundamental game design.
For whatever the reason is, and while I could conjecture I’ll spare people some of the monologue, SG has decided that there’s a rate of influx of ascension items… and it’s fairly clear that Mercing gains more than that.
It doesn’t matter how many flags were used in 7DD’s adventure, I know for a fact long time mercs use flasks and it still adds up over time so it’s really irrelevant: the point is they gained more ascension items per unit time than they would’ve otherwise and whatever the numbers were (I certainly didn’t track them) it was more than what I personally gained as I wasn’t one of the ones that went walkabout.
As I mentioned somewhere up above, and I apologize for rehashing this, but it’s clear the limited ascension items is intentional (otherwise they’d simply give us higher chances in general because the community been complaining about it on the forums since before I even started playing) and mercing clearly falls outside that.
It’s really as simple as that: mercs have it better, period, so if you want loot, and clearly people do, go mercing… and this doesn’t appear to be what SG wants for their game. Whatever the rationale is.
What I’m really surprised by is more people haven’t been mercing… I’m just lazy, obviously, but most people don’t take that quite to the same extremes I do.
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The players below them? You mean the ones that have been playing 6 months or less and are on titans between 1 and 7*? The players that mercs help the most? Lmao was expecting better answer than that man, if anything you strengthened my argument since the ones that are for this change are in the top 100 alliances who don’t use mercs. Nice try though. A for effort.
Oops! I think you just lost all credibility.
I can’t put it any better than that. Actually, I can’t even put it as well as that.
So, what will keep me from killing 6x1* titans and getting 6 rolls per day after mercs will be decreased?
I think there should be a new thread comparing mercs stock of ascension items and maxed heros compared to long term alliance members. If the loot is really as random as it seems to be, i doubt a couple extra rolls is making that big of a difference to mess with it and i think comparing a decent sample amount of mercs vs long time alliance members would be best resources to debunk the “mercs have it better” myth. A lot of mercs I’ve used in the past have simply stated they don’t have a consistent enough schedule to be in a daily titan hitting allaince. So they pop on randomly and help alliances that need a little extra boost. You guys make it sound like mercs do it solely fpr the loot and that’s simply not true. But they use their flags to help a team of 30 so seems dumb they shouldnt have a shot at the same rewards just because they wont be in the same alliance everyday. This whole issue is dumb to be honest. Shouldn’t have even been brought up pr touched. That’s the bottom line. Mercs are not negatively effecting the game. So therefore shouldn’t be effected negatively in return. They already dont fill titan chests as much as us, they already dont get to participate in wars unless well timed and then they give up multiple titan hits anyways. That’s 2 things sg has already done to discourage mercing. So really if you count up to 14 less loot rolls they get than a daily active member of an alliance that kills titans regularly, sg has already dwarfed their loot chances plenty. This extra step is a bit much and unfair regardless of how “7D” chooses to justify it or SG for that matter. Treating players different than other players isn’t fair, isn’t right, and will simply just push more players away from the game. If SG is willing to risk their bottomline for that then go for it. My suggestion to mercs: do not spend another dime on the game no matter how good the deal is and don’t watch a single mystic vision ad. SG wants to punish mercs, well that street can go both ways.
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Lost all credibility by saying low level players are who get the most help from mercs? Nice try again with the sarcasm, i see it on every thread you respond to and just goes to show me that you really can’t come up with an educated debate to anything so you cover it up with sarcasm. Just shows insecurity.
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This nerf isn’t being introduced because mercs dominate the game. It’s being introduced because by reasonably and smartly exploiting a loophole and not playing the game the way that was intended, mercs are generating far more ascension items for themselves than the devs intended. If you couldn’t understand when I explained that (though I thought I was clear) then read @Revelate’s explanation. It’s better anyway.
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Of course a couple of extra ascension rolls a week will add up to significant extra ascension items. And a more realistic estimate seems to be that mercs at least double their ascension rolls. When rewards are low probability, increasing your rolls is the best way of capturing rewards. (It’s called the Law of Large Numbers.)
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If mercs are acting for altruistic reasons then nerfing their rewards ought not to affect them.
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But their altruistic motivations are problematic. They are helping alliances kill Titans that they would not otherwise be able to kill. Again, this is not how the game was intended to be played, it is generating ascension rolls for players who would not otherwise have won them, and it is fouling up war matching.
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So far as we can tell, SG is not implementing this because any players have been disadvantaged - that does not seem to be their motivation at all (see 1. above). But the suggestion that players are not being disadvantaged is obvious hogwash. The majority of players do not merc: they suffer by comparison to mercs who at least double their ascension rolls. And the majority of alliances do not use mercs: they suffer by comparison to alliances who do use mercs, and who thus win ascension rolls they did not deserve. Fairness is not driving this change, but to argue that mercing is somehow a net positive is nonsense, given that it disadvantages the vast majority of players.
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That wasn’t sarcasm. I was being sincere when I suggested you had lost all credibility. Sincerity is the opposite of sarcasm.
Stating the bleeding obvious: if you suggest that “the players that mercs help the most” have been playing 6 months or less and are on Titans between 1 and 7*, then not only are mercs “completely dominating” players of their own vintage who don’t merc, they are also contributing to beginners who use mercs dominating those who don’t use them. Or did you not see that, when you wrote it?
And you care because? I’m assuming jealousy because you don’t get those extra 1 or 2 items a week?
This has been said before, everyone has a choice to merc, if you want to, you can, if you don’t then you don’t and don’t complain
Easy as that
Also from what I’ve seen there is only a handful of mercs that have the same roster as the people in the top 50 alliances
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Lol well you didnt uss sarcasm so i appreciate that. I still disagree that mercs have a big enough advantage over other players to tweak it, but without loot statistics(actual statistics, not theories) of actual mercs and long time alliance members there is no way to prove or disprove they have an advantage. Sure if you spin it just right it seems they do, but without that spin it seems they don’t. We don’t know that mercs are killing titans daily, and not every alliance that uses mercs uses them to kill titans they can’t already kill, some do it just to kill them quicker to better prepare for the next one. The other day i had an 8* titan over half dead before the 12 hour mark, i went into AR out of boredom and let a high level player hit our titan because he was bored and wanted something to do but said he’s never been on consistently enough to keep from holding an alliance back. So in that 1 instance it didn’t help us kill a titan we wouldn’t have killed without him, and he didnt brag or jump for joy so he probably got the same crap loot as the rest of us. So yea i could take that 1 instance and spin it in the favor of my argument just like some could take revelates statistics and math and spin it for theirs. Without actual evidence all we have is theories and ideal situations that are pretty rare
I don’t particularly care. I have a long history of not really giving a fig one way or other where mercs are concerned. But the reasons for SG implementing this nerf are very clear, and I have yet to see anyone make a good argument for why mercing should continue.
The essence of your case, so far as I can tell, is:
“Leave me alone I’m not hurting you go away pretend I’m not here!”
Which I’m more than happy to do. But it’s not me who’s doing the nerfing - it’s SG. I think (hope) you can see why they would want to make the change. This is your chance to argue why they shouldn’t make it. Directing your ire at other players probably isn’t the way to go, though - it’s clearly not the interests of other players that is motivating SG.
And how would mercing effect wars by increasing titan score? By gaining an alliance a tougher matchup? The alliance should be aware of that before using mercs if they know wars is matched up through titan score, and if they know the game well enough to snag a merc for titan help then they probably know how the match system works and odds are titan score probably dropped before prep time began, and if it uses a give/take 5k range, then the alliance probably only gained roughly a couple thousand in score which doesn’t seem like it would matter that much in matchmaking unless I’m just totally missing the mechanics of fluctuating titan scores and how alliances are matched for wars
But that one instance you refer to cannot be spun in favour of any argument: it’s just one instance. And the really kewl thing about that “statistics and math” stuff of @Revelate’s is that it does need to be spun in favour of any argument - it speaks for itself.
Mercing generates lots more ascension rolls. This is not disputed. When you get lots more ascension rolls, you will (over time) generate lots more ascension items. This is not disputed.
You’d be silly to argue about this stuff because it’s beyond debate. If you want to make a case for mercing, make it on some sort of social basis. I don’t merc and I’ve never used mercs - sell me (and SG, if they ever read this) on the vast benefits to the game culture that come about from the activity. Or something. I dunno - I’ve never done it.