Style of Play

SGG has clearly shown they don’t want the game at the top to be a “merc or fall behind”. that’s where this is coming from. If that has changed, then behavior will change but there’s 18 months of decisions from SGG that say this is not the case.

No worries, no one is takin u guys out of the top 5 by mercing lol [edited by Rook]

95% positive those changes by SG have come after complaints by the way

Not putting the time of searching and contacting to prove it because at the end of the day it doesnt matter

Some people have always gotten their way and always will

You guys wanted 12s to remain the top titan

Well now 12s are being killed within the first half of spawn time

Now you guys are mad that others have found more productive things to do gameplay wise than just sit around and wait for the next titan

Sounds like a problem that wouldnt exist if 12s wouldnt have been made the cap of the titan chain.

Mercing isnt effecting any other alliance in a negative way

Helps bottom, mid, and now even some top alliances

But because you guys choose not to merc then you guys dont like it so therefore no one should do it and when in a corner you guys just pass the buck off to SG as culprits

SG normally implements new changes and features due to player requests and complaints

Guess who has always complained about mercing as far back as i can remember?

Again mercing is a pretty fair game. Not everyone will do it. Some will. Just a strategic way to play the game, just like choosing to compete for top ranks in challenge events.

Opportunity is there for all. Those that dont put in the time/effort to take advantage of it, will bash it. Those that reap the rewards will defend it.

I’m just the guy in the middle with an opinion that got tired of watching 1 brand steamroll their way through the game and started speaking up about it.

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People who never mercs should not talking about mercing. I mean real mercing, the one that really gave me back then much more materials of regular playing.

I really think i deserved that for so much effort. Much more then staying at top and just kill whatever comes to me because all of my team is great.

Not anyone can be a real merc.
If you think so you are wrong.
Mercing meaning gain much and lose much at the same time.
Programming. Betting. Analize and so on…

No one is bashing mercs. and it’s not about “getting our way”. but in a competitive game, where margins are slim st the top, we need to know what’s allowed and what’s not. There’s a difference between what’s allowed because it’s intended and what the game mechanics allow because of how coding works and people didn’t think to implement certain things (ie turning off emblems for rares if you weren’t there at the start). I and others are looking for an answer as to “how is it supposed to be and what will it be like going forward”. if it’s no change then it’s no change, so be it.

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To my knowledge, no one has claimed mercing is unfair. It is perfectly fair.

But as matters stand, there are strong incentives to merc instead of sticking with an alliance for the long term. The devs have previously indicated that they do not want players to switch in and out of alliances frequently. If that is still the case then they probably need to nerf mercing to remove (or reduce) those incentives.

If that was the case then it might mitigate the situation, but I don’t think it is right. I dunno - need to think about this some more.

There is some truth to this. I don’t want the incentives to merc to be such that I can’t resist it. If they do turn out to be so great then I’ll just put on my mercing hat and get to it - but based on the devs’ previous comments, I don’t think this is what they want.

That’s definitely not true of the first merc nerfs. The player base in general (at least as represented here on the forum) was baffled as to what could be behind them. It took some rather vague hints by the devs followed by some decent analysis to divine exactly what was happening, and why. It’s fair to say, I think, that the whole thing was pretty surprising to most.

A post was merged into an existing topic: Gifting gems to others

It’s not the mercs shouldn’t get good loot. My view is that it should be similar to the loot a similar player gets in an alliance. Peoplemshould play whichever way they’d like, but the loot shouldn’t be markedly better on one path than another. In particular, given the commercial value to SGG of maintaining a strong social element to the game, loot should have a slight tilt towards alliances. Emphasis on slight.

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My only experience with mercs were the uninvited ones who joined our alliance when we were mid-level and had spots avaiable with an open invite.

We were struggling, at that time, perhaps with a 7 star titan. The merc would come in with their powerful team (at that point 3500) and we were so excited to welcome them as new members. They rarely said “hello” to our welcomes, helped us defeat the titan, landing in top spot, then leaving again. Now, we were left to face the next, now stronger titan on our own.

It also made me leery of any new, stronger member who legitimately joined us. I didn’t trust them, or want to get attached to them, not knowing if they genuinely wanted to be with us. I found it disruptive to our alliance.

I have no problem with alliances asking for mercs to come help them with a tough, or rare titan. It’s at least “honest” and both sides are agreeing to the offer.

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Moderator’s note: “naming and shaming” is not tolerated. Make your case without attacking other specific players or alliances.

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My somewhat rhetorical question was meant to bolster the point that players may have differing priorities, so thanks for picking up on that. :slight_smile:

And this is a good summary of the point I was drawing earlier:

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Why not remove the emblems from rare titan’s loot and just grant them in a fair amount on titan’s chest loot?

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Is mercing even viable at all anymore? Reduced loot from alliance hopping, freeze on titan chest, missing war loot entirely… whenever I see people in AR who are strictly merc I just don’t get it.

Wait until you do the math how many days of mercing rares it would take to max classes of 10 5*

Lookin at around 5 to 50 emblems per day
Like 1500 emblems per class

Honestly it’s a ridiculous complaint at this point. Not to metnion the ones who are fully taken advantage of it have already sacrificed emblems from their war chests and in most cases their titan chests as well. And are not in top alliances which doesnt threaten the competition at the top. What could extra emblems possibly give anyone an advantage in?

Wars? They wont be there if they are that serious about chasing emblems and even if they were it would take a substantial amount to make a difference. The growth per emblem cost isnt exactly giant leaps.

Events? Nope money and items rule the show there

Raid defenses? U get what for having a good raid defense again? Oh yea squat

They could consistently kill 12* titans with slightly improved heros? Players do that with standard heros

So to think players are going to get some huuge advantage that dont even merc rares everyday is the most outlandish alarm i’ve ever heard raised in this game.

The more i think about it, the more i wish i hadnt even wasted my time discussing it today. It’s that ridiculous.

There wasnt an alarm raised about mercs getting mats, not even a 2nd thought. Takes 6 scopes to max a 5. Takes a ton more embelems to see a similar improvement.

[edited by Rook]

SG can scratch their heads on it if they want, but i’m pretty positive the game has more important issues

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if they doing it for the materials i can understand ofc… i’m not a fan of mercing but like you said let people play how they want :)… but i think sg needs to make the ascension mats a little less rare… alot of free to play people quit cuz of the overflow of p2w… progress is a lot of faster… some people that never buy need average a year to have a full 5* rainbow team while a p2w player that buy sales do it in 4 ( like me )… i just tink they shut make mats little easier to get… ofc all other players will grow too but the f2p or c2p players can grow faster also and compete and enjoy the game more… i like the game alot its unique in his way and alot of opportunities to experiment ofcourse… but sometimes mats are frustrating i see people that get like average of 12-15 mats a week while another one dont get a single one for a whole week… my gf is c2p and she play for barely 2 months and she got a better team then i got when i played cuz she get the mats 5 times more then i’m :slight_smile: she even can almost max ascend a 5* on her 2nd month i wasnt even close without doing all these sales and stuff :slight_smile:

@Brobb your staunch realism is better than a drink+hot yoga+kale. It always sets my endorphins going. And it’s free and 0 calories! Thank you!

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Hey @zephyr1 and all :grin:, I’m new to the concept of mercing. I’ve heard of it but could someone kindly explain why it’s lucrative?

If I had to guess: It’s either because the merc is considerably more powerful than all alliance members and therefore they constantly get A or A+ in titans.

Or the mercs get paid in cash and they use that to buy deals etc.

Or is that a bad guess.

Many thanks

The titans’ lootsl is random? In my alliance, I scored B and got a warm cape. While A+ got me a mere wooden sword…lol.
The top attacker may not always get the best loot…and vice versa.

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at the end of the day it doesn’t matter if you’re a merc or a dedicated alliance member because the titans’ loot is randomly given?

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There are several measures in place that make it not very lucrative, like reduced loot if you kill multiple titans in a day, and freezes on your titan chest progress.

The place where it can potentially be lucrative — and why there’s debate around it — is if a merc only goes after Rare Titans.

The release notes originally said that the possibility of getting the Bonus Roll for the 4* mat on a Rare Titan was limited to people who’d been in the alliance when the titan appeared. But people have found that to not be the case.

And now with the addition of Emblems to Rare Titan loot, that’s a second potential benefit of mercing and only (or mostly) helping on Rare Titans.

And neither of those requires good ranking. They’re given at random.

Based on the original release notes, it’s unclear whether the ability to get the Bonus loot or Emblems from a Rare Titan is intentional, or a bug.

But that’s where this conversation comes from.

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Oh I see, thanks very much for the debrief.

Hunting around for rare titans sounds like an interesting practice.

My initial thoughts are that SG should give the long term alliance members more rolls for the rare titan loot eg 5 vs 1 but that might be too expensive for SG

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