The Fusion Fighters recruitment thread! šŸ˜ [27/30]

After that last selling point, Iā€™ve come to the realisation that midweek war hits are far better for me during those final hours in the morning as I get more success!

Actually a bit conflicted about that. On the one hand I tend to like to know Iā€™ve got my hits in and not run the risk of not using my flags due to outside issues; on the other, tile luck does feel better in the mornings. :thinking:

Well, as long as those war hits are used. :grin:

Join us at Fusion Fighters to whack others in war!

Nooooooā€¦! :sob:
There goes my five consecutive war wins dream.
Ah, well. :laughing:

Join us at Fusion Fighters for war and titan whacking shenanigans. :slightly_smiling_face:

Soā€¦ Iā€™ve read many a time on the forums and understand why it happens but this is the first time Iā€™ve been in a mismatched war. Our opponents have a one team advantage over us! :scream:

This will be interesting. :thinking: :laughing:

Come help us even the odds atā€¦ Fusion Fighters! :grin:

(What do you mean itā€™s too late for someone to help us?)

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Itā€™s been a while since Iā€™ve written up one of those posts, so here we goā€¦ :laughing:

So our weekend war was the first mismatch Iā€™ve ever been in despite reading much about it on these very forums. But what is a war mismatch? Typically it refers to the two participating alliances not having the same number of members on the field of battle.

What have I gleaned about the war matchmaking algorithm after much reading?

  1. It attempts to match war scores first.
  2. It allows a difference of up to three on the field.
  3. War scores are determined by the combination of participating membersā€™ top 30 heroes (with top five weighted more), troops, and win/loss history.

My own checking suggests a player has a base war score comprised of the strength of their heroes and troops, and a win/loss will modify the score by a specific amount. The win/loss history modifier is enough to explain some cases of a ā€˜strongā€™ alliance being matched up to a ā€˜weakā€™ alliance.

Now, when the war started it took me a short while to figure out there was a mismatch with our opponents having a one team (and a potential six attacks) advantage over us. On average, one of us would be worth more points than one of them given how points are calculated and distributed.

But with all that out of the way, does it assuage the feeling of an unfair matchup?
Nope.

Iā€™m one of those players who doesnā€™t think TP is the end all and be all in evaluating the strength of an opponentā€™s defence (in war or raids). The heroesā€™ specials and potential synergy form a part of my evaluation of their ā€˜strengthā€™.

And ā€˜strengthā€™ is relative. It also depends on who is available to me to use in attack. My favourite raid team regularly goes up against teams 400-600 TP higher, and can even win on occasions. Confidence is also part of it (until the board says otherwise).

But for interest what was the TP spread within the war defences fielded?

Opponentā€™s War defence TP Our War defence TP
3942
4104 3868
4168 3907
4173 4283
4219 4359
4392 4384
4401 4414
4404 4487
4432 4502
4476 4546
4482 4552
4488 4564
4504 4580
4514 4601
4559 4622
4594 4625
4604 4636
4646 4637
4667 4656
4669 4669
4730 4705
4745 4740

At both extremes, our opponentsā€™ TP were higher than ours. But this says nothing about each individual playerā€™s roster. Keep this in mind. Sure, TP might not be the entire story, so what about points?

Opponentā€™s Total Points Our Total Points
62
63 63
65 65
65 66
65 68
65 71
66 71
66 71
68 71
69 71
69 72
69 72
71 72
71 75
71 75
71 75
72 75
72 77
74 77
74 77
75 77
78 78
1521 1519

Iā€™ve included the sum of the points at the bottom. Notice how itā€™s not neatly 1500 due to rounding discrepancies. Also note how their alliance is worth a bit more than us, but many of ours individually tend to be worth more. But points are only really indicative how much health the team has, how hard can they be? I look at the tankā€™s DEF to get a rough idea.

Opponentā€™s Tank DEF Our Tank DEF
650
685 585
699 608
703 698
722 723
738 752
739 781
761 798
774 804
785 819
802 822
802 828
820 835
857 863
878 878
884 882
897 905
973 909
973 924
1003 945
1003 1003
1003 1035

Our DEF has the lowest and highest values on the field. But seeing our opponents field three fully adult Heimdalls isnā€™t exactly reassuring! Honestly, I didnā€™t fancy our chances. Not that I mentioned it to the team! :laughing:

In the endā€¦
2021-08-29 War result edit
For us, it was a relief (and an easy win in the end).

Despite the six flag advantage our opponents had it didnā€™t matter in the end. But in a perverse way the matchmaking algorithm worked. It matched a fewer war participants ā€˜strongā€™ alliance with a ā€˜weakerā€™ but more participants alliance. Makes more sense than the reverse case; think about it.

In such a situation having a strategy can help. Also having team members with a fairly well defined role would too. Or perhaps knowing what role you should play at any one time within the war. It all adds up.

And we at Fusion Fighters have a strategy. Of sorts. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:
Join us at Fusion Fighters for ongoing war shenanigans and my continuing quest to get those five consecutive war victories! :laughing:

(Seriously, who puts up so many numbers for a mismatched warā€¦?
So much for the recruitment post,
Iā€™m pretty sure Iā€™ve bored the pants off everyone!)

It occurs to me that my morning coffee might be broken, as I canā€™t seem to stop yawning!
Come share your coffee fixing techniques with us at Fusion Fighters! :laughing:

That wasnā€™t really conducive for our recruitment purposes.

Iā€™m pretty sure people like coffeeā€¦:thinking:

Time for an alliance info update!

We are Fusion Fighters!
(Still trying hard not to change the name!)

Capture

Tagline: Casually competitive
We do our best with what we have.
While we like to win we understand life comes first. :slightly_smiling_face:

Titans: Hit them! :laughing:
Currently hovering around 9 and 10* titans.
Theyā€™re (somewhat) good for loot!
Current daily phrase: ā€œHit the titan for POVā€™s sake! :laughing:ā€

War policy: optional
Use all flags if opted in.
We use a wave/farming strategy, so it is time sensitive.

At some point I probably have to write about our current ā€˜behaviour policyā€™ā€¦ :thinking: :laughing:

Fancy a change? Check us out at Fusion Fighters. :grin:

For anyone brave enough to go through this threadā€”

As if anyone would do thatā€¦

You never know! Anywayā€¦ itā€™s no secret that war is my favourite aspect of the game. So my ingame preoccupation is concerned with how to approach war (from varying levels) and what sort of strategies might be available to us as an alliance.

Current thought is everyone should use a Bovril tank! :laughing:
Heā€™s beefy, itā€™ll be a coordinated blue tank, plus we get to exhaust our opponentsā€™ supply of debuffers (and those of similar abilities)!

Dear potential recruit. Do note that our current leader is crazy. This is not official alliance policy.

Why not? It sounds like it could be funā€¦ :slightly_frowning_face:

You should still consider joining us at Fusion Fighters though.

Midweek war was a intense affair during those final hours.

The alliance we faced had the most TP4700 defences Iā€™ve seen this year, with one over TP4800! :scream:
It was one of those ā€œbe lucky if weā€™re not humiliatedā€ wars going in. But we managed to grind out a victory. Iā€™m still not sure how it happened. :laughing:

Join us at Fusion Fighters. :slightly_smiling_face:

It has been a while since I did a properā€¦

War tactics musings :grin:
Currently thinking aboutā€¦ bench usage!

Most teams weā€™re coming across now tend to use coordinated tanks, i.e. the same colour tank. (Still reckon an all Bovril tank for war is a good ideaā€¦)

No.

Awā€¦ :slightly_frowning_face:
Anywayā€¦ what a coordinated tank defence is supposed to do is exhaust the oppositionā€™s roster of the strong colour against the tank. As a player, the ideal bench would have six teams of strong colour against the tank! Butā€¦ thatā€™s a bit unrealistic for most of us. So what could we do? :thinking:

Iā€™m of the opinion of making the most of the ā€˜weakerā€™ members of the roster. ā€˜Weakerā€™ is relative here with respect to the enemy tankā€™s colour. Iā€™ve been experimenting with the weak colour against tanks of low DEF on the field. It could work if tile luck is willing. (When things get desperate I go mono!)

Then thereā€™s also the possibility of using those ā€˜weakerā€™ members for clean up duties, e.g. when the tank is taken out or severely damaged.

Make the most of what you have. Obvious, I suppose. :thinking: :laughing:

The Fusion Fighters (war) behaviour policy post! :laughing:

Our esteemed (and crazy) leader is running out of things to bump this thread up for attentionā€¦

Okay, so it really does come down to the members in the alliance. The core members have been together for a decent couple of years now, and things are nice and cozy as far as Iā€™m concerned. Weā€™re respectful of each other, as people ought to be.

The one area where behaviour, so to speak, is currently monitored (with consequences) is war. Anyone who has read my various posts on the forums will know I track bits of war data, and flag usage is one. Previously, I would track but not use. But had Erazer ever wanted me to check on something, then the information is there. In essence, flag usage was tracked but not used.

Since the (accidental) promotion to leadership, I have decided to make use of the tracking. Partly because it was always one of the more probable causes of disgruntlement for members (old and new). and secondly to effectively communicate these decisions alliance-wide.

We do consider ourselves a ā€˜casually competitiveā€™ alliance. In line with many other alliances (at least it feels that way on the forums) we take a use all flags if opted in approach. The question isā€¦ what do we do if someone misses flags? :thinking:

Different alliances have different approaches. There are alliances who will automatically demote the member for leaving war flags unused. I would even hazard to guess there are alliances who kick out members for leaving war flags.

Both are too extreme for a casually competitive alliance, as we call ourselves. But weā€™re not so casual that there shouldnā€™t be any consequences. So I decided to use a ā€˜probationā€™ system! :laughing:

Probation occurs when war flags are missed.
A one war probation period for missing flags of a winning war.
A two war probation period for missing flags of a losing war.
If flags are missed during probation, then demotion.
If probation is passed with no incident then all is well.

The thought behind this system is to serve as a warning and reminder. Because life is more important than the game, and there can be genuine reasons for missing flags, immediate demotion felt too harsh to me. If it was a one-off incident then it is easily addressed through normal play. Of course, if war flags are missed again then it starts to look like a pattern.

We currently donā€™t have anything for titans though. Personally Iā€™m not sure we need one, as titans are a very different affair. A good hit here or there can make up the difference for a missed titan flag. Iā€™ve even slept through titans! :laughing:

Probably why you donā€™t have a behaviour policy for titansā€¦

Oiā€¦

Anyway, consider joining us at Fusion Fighters. :grin:

Soā€¦ that was an interesting mid-week war.

The alliance we faced had a few low TP teams and quite a few high TP teams. Their top tier certainly were a cause for concern becauseā€¦ I had anticipated weā€™d be short of six flags for this one. Why? Ahā€¦ shenanigans.

Someone joined us over a week ago, then went inactive for a week. Not a huge problem as they werenā€™t opted into war. Certainly a candidate for booting asā€¦ they werenā€™t participating in any alliance activities: no war (optional, so fine), no titan hits, no communication for absence.

Then they logged in, and went inactive again. Come midweek war they were on the field. The course was essentially set. Of course, I donā€™t make certain decisions without notifying the alliance of my reasoning for certain actions.

Come the end of the war, they were still inactive and we had six flags left as I had anticipated. Boot. On the plus side, we did manage to win and there were a couple of promotions.

I might have to consider my tolerance for the inactivity of new members. :thinking:
Read in another thread that one alliance allows five days. Sounds appropriate to me.

Join us at Fusion Fighters for a fairly consistent playing environment. :slightly_smiling_face:

As a follow up thought about inactivity, anyone who decides to check out Fusion Fighters might wonder why thereā€™s a member who has been inactive for so long but still remain unbooted. Iā€™m rather sentimental.

Historically theyā€™ve always communicated their intended absences and been a solid member of the alliance for years. Knowing a bit of their personal circumstance and where they are in the world also makes me think it wasnā€™t the safest during a pandemic.

Given that knowledge it makes me think of worst case scenarios. Should we get more members and they remain absent (for whatever reason), then they will be booted. Weā€™re not quite a capacity yet though.

And this is why communication is important. It gives the alliance members a basic understanding of personal circumstance, builds up additional trust, and (when applicable) benefit of the doubt.

Just a bit more into my thought process as part of the alliance.

Consider joining us atā€¦ Fusion Fighters. :grin:

Wellā€¦ updated the thread to reflect weā€™re close to capacity at 29 members (28 members).

It was my (unvoiced) intention to remove our inactive member once weā€™re close to 30. 29 was the number I had in mind to do so. Began the process of doing so by demoting them from their co-leader status. Itā€™s a bit weird to have to do so.

For a very long time at Fusion Fighters in war, Erazer would be in the central leader position on the field. This member on his left, and Iā€™d be on the right. At some point as I leveled up my roster I lost my position on the field. :scream:

It is sad as we donā€™t know why they went inactiveā€¦ :frowning_face:

Heā€™s going to forget to tell you to join us, isnā€™t he?
Join Fusion Fighters, as led by our rather sentimental leader.

I lost my spreadsheet! :scream:

Anyway, it was one of those odd wars. Some of the opposition teams were oddly tough, even though their general tank DEF wasnā€™t that high.

Despite flags being left unused (with one leaving in the middle of war), we managed to squeeze out a victory. :relieved:

On that note, we do have a reliable consistent core team. Come check us out at Fusion Fighters to see if weā€™re the right fit for you. :slightly_smiling_face:

Been a strange couple of weeks here at Fusion Fighters; some comings and goings. One thing Iā€™ve always shied away from is disciplinary issues. Iā€™m just the resident pom-pom shaker here! :laughing:

Since (accidental) promotion itā€™s one area where I have sought to be open and consistent about. A few weeks ago I mentioned the case of inactivity of a new member, who strangely opted into war and then went inactive again, and my need to evaluate my tolerance levels. Another new member also tested my tolerance recentlyā€¦ :unamused:

Amongst our general rules are those governing war. I think weā€™re aligned with (what feels like) many other alliances: war is optional, all flags if in. Additionally we coordinate tanks and have a strategy. We donā€™t expect everyone to be heavy hitters, even low level players can contribute to an allianceā€™s war efforts if they play intelligently.

When a new member joins us weā€™d expect them to be a part of the team. So when they donā€™t observe the above? I would have to wonder why. After a few wars of trying to get them to play along it seemed a bit pointless to try given the lack of communication. So after a bit of deliberation after midweek war they were let go.

To me it came down to a matter of trust.

Can we as a team trust you?
Join us at Fusion Fighters! :grin:

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So weekend war has come and gone. Given our strategy I took a look at our opponentā€™s defence teams on the field andā€¦ ouch. It looked really rough out there. Thinking to myself I thought it would be good if we could avoid a humiliating defeat.

Colour me surprised (can we colour people surprised?) when I got back to the game after dinner to find all flags for both alliances were used, and we had won. Shows how good at evaluating the opposition and our chances I am! :laughing:

Come defy my expectations atā€¦ Fusion Fighters! :grin:

Been quite a few posts since I did one of theseā€¦

We. Are. Fusion. Fighters. :fire:
We canā€™t be having the place be on fireā€¦ :fire_engine: :fire_extinguisher:
My recruitment effort! :scream:
Anywaysā€¦

2021-10-27 Alliance banner

We are (still) a top 10,000 alliance! :grin:
2021-10-27 Alliance ranking

Tagline: Casually competitve
We like to win, but we donā€™t do so ā€˜at all costsā€™.
Real life comes first, just give us a heads up if you anticipate being away and stuff.
You donā€™t have to chat, but do communicate. :wink:

Titan policy: Hit the titan for POVā€™s sake! :laughing:
Titans are (somewhat) good for loot.
Hovering around 10* currently. Evaluating our chances against 11*.

War policy: optional
We run coordinated tanks. Occasional review of tank colour via alliance membership consensus.
All flags if in. (Beware of probation if you miss any!)
Wave strategy, so it is time sensitive.

Come join us at Fusion Fighters and we shall puzzle 'em up together! :grin:
What on earth does that even mean?

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Itā€™s a strange experience being made leader when you arenā€™t expecting it, especially as I had only returned to the the alliance after a break from the game earlier in the year. I feel we have a good core group of people who are pulling in the same direction. However, this could potentially lead to a sense of complacency.

I have a standard introduction for new members finishing with "Any questions, just ask. :slightly_smiling_face: " Itā€™s not just an invitation to ask questions there and then, itā€™s for whenever they have a question.

In becoming leader I have sought to make certain processes transparent to the team. At the very least itā€™s so if I have been inconsistent someone can point it out.

One of the first is the probation system for missing war flags. 1-war probation for missing flags in a winning war; 2-war probation for missing flags in a losing war. Violation during probation means demotion. Pass probation without issue then all is forgiven. Life happens to all of us. Immediate demotion feels too harsh for an alliance who uses ā€˜casually competitiveā€™ as a tagline.

Partnering the probation ā€˜policyā€™ is how I handle promotions. Since I donā€™t track titan data new members are disadvantaged if they donā€™t participate in war - Iā€™ll need something there for this possibility. I do track war data and most do participate in war. 8 wars using all flags will earn promotion to Elder status.

Weā€™ve had a few new members since I took over and I got to promote a few. :slightly_smiling_face:
However, I only realised today we had two members of the alliance, who have been with us for longer than these new members, still at Member status. :man_facepalming:
It only took me about four blooming months to realise! :laughing:
Seriously though, I hadnā€™t realised this was the situation. So today we had a couple of long overdue promotions as a result.

Both these things fall under the disciplinary aspect in an alliance. Itā€™s one of the things Iā€™ve always avoided, which is why I didnā€™t pay attention to when Erazer ever had to deal with such issues (positive or negative). I needed something which I could consistently follow.

Anybodyā€™s pants been bored off? :thinking:

Anywaysā€¦ consider joining us at Fusion Fighters. :grin:

Following the previous postā€¦

I think Iā€™ve been lucky with my alliances so far. There really havenā€™t been much in the way of clashes and arguments. A recent incident was inevitable given long enough, and it began with an escaped titan and ended with them leaving after war matchmaking was confirmed. So for this weekendā€™s war we are at a disadvantage unfortunately.

The issues got me to remember an old thread I read:

and contributed to:

The above post was made back in Feb 2020, about 19 months ago. I donā€™t think things have really changed much except my now being leader of the alliance I was a co-leader of.

Thereā€™s not a great deal in the Member, Elder and Co-leader status for me aside from game administrative tasks. Elders can accept join requests if the alliance is set to invite only. Co-leaders can change various alliance settings (banner, featured message). A higher status member can kick a lower status one. Similar for promotion, I think.

Iā€™m of the mind the team will recognise who is knowledgeable even without a label. Similarly, they will recognise leadership even without the label. I think back to the days of when Alan Shearer was captain of the England football (a.k.a. soccer) team, and reading stories that players still looked to Tony Adams for guidance. Assuming Iā€™m not remembering incorrectly.

Returning to how I began this post, this particular incident involved our then newest member and the issue of promotion, status and my leadership. They were correct insofar we could be clearer on our titan strategy, though I didnā€™t acknowledge their claim for promotion to being a Co-leader.

More seriously, it brings to mind this post in the same thread:

Essentially, I wasnā€™t willing to dispose of my approach to discipline (positive or negative) for the sake of one player. A player whom, in the end, didnā€™t last a month with us. I attribute this to a clash of personalities more than anything else, perhaps a dash of expectations thrown in as well from the ex-member.

In this thread I often suggest giving us a try to see if weā€™re the right fit for you. This is a reason as to why. A week is probably sufficient to gain an accurate idea of the allianceā€™s culture and atmosphere.

Additionally, our idiot of a leader had written off this weekendā€™s war. We only went ahead and won itā€¦

Oiā€¦ Anyway, consider joining us atā€¦ Fusion Fighters. :grin:

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Iā€™ve only been in two alliances (well, technically three). My first I stumbled upon using the ingame alliance search just entering random words. Luckily there were good people in and I settled in. A bit later a decision was made to merge with another alliance and we moved over. I recall one didnā€™t quite settle and left afterwards.

I settled in as it had the correct atmosphere for me. Thereā€™s a reason I returned to the alliance after my break earlier in the year, I like the people I was playing alongside. Then we had the case of Erazer overpromoting meā€¦

People have come and gone. Life and interest will dictate our time with this game. But for while we are playing itā€™s a good thing to play alongside people with a similar mindset as yourself. If youā€™ve the patience to browse through this thread (good luck to you on that), youā€™ll get an idea of what Iā€™m like. :laughing:

In summary (without a proper introductionā€¦), are you our sort of people?
Check us out to find out atā€¦ Fusion Fighters! :grin: