Kudos to you for finally following through and posting your thoughts. I hope you feel better for doing so.
I’m always thinking aloud and posting messages to friends via Line, and then I unsend the message - for me just reading my thoughts in print is therapeutic in itself. Sometimes though, I haven’t had time to unsend before my friend/s magically appear on Line - oops .
I concur with @PooFlingerJr, breaks can be refreshing, having recently returned to my home alliance after a mini vacation. Did you know, alliances still use non-green tanks ? Was great to rethink my attack teams and actually use my blue heros.
Great alliances are like a family, who always have their door open for their prodigal child’s return.
This game is meant to be fun! Blessings in your decision making .
I know that life can be hard on everyone at times…
Yes, that even includes those seemingly uncaring types who like to troll and poke fun at other people who might be going through something.
There will come a time in their own lives when they will learn firsthand what sadness feels like. It’s inevitable for nearly everyone eventually. I only hope that when their own times come, that they are surrounded by people who are more sympathetic than they were themselves.
My alliance is kept closed and private out of respect for my own members, because of the fact that I don’t trust the average “random internet person” to be kind, understanding, and supportive. Especially not when they don’t know me or my alliance mates, what’s to stop them from acting like a total [expletive]? Aside from me being there when it happens to promptly kick them out on their rear ends. But at that point the damage would have already been done.
“Sticks and stones…” yeah, fine. That’s fine for a children’s playground. Fine for an open internet where I expect people to be jerks most of the time anyway. Not at all acceptable in my alliance, though. My #1 and probably ONLY firm rule is to not intentionally make any other member feel personally discouraged or uncomfortable.
Yeah yeah queue the jokes about “bunch of crybabies looking for a safe space”. It’s a video game. It’s supposed to be fun. Not mean or stressful. If I enjoyed flinging insults and vulgarities at other people online, I’d post on YouTube comments or play Call of Duty.
So maybe I am a little overprotective of my own alliance mates. It’s my alliance. I’ll run it how I want to. Two options: treat your fellow alliance mates with dignity and respect, or get tossed out the door.
This is my ideal alliance. @TGW this should be a poll option. To be amongst good people who try their best, communicate if RL is a minefield, have lots of laughs and empathise when you bounce off a Telly tank repeatedly in war.
Global rating and Titan level are secondary considerations. Although if you’re all striving to get better, you may end up a top 100 alliance chaining 14* titans. This sounds vaguely familiar .
I created a new more in-depth poll on the subject. But I still think I might not have addressed every possible subject or option in that one either.
One of these days I’ll learn how to build a proper poll.
I don’t think my own alliance will be fighting 14* titans anytime soon, as we only have 21 current members and many of them are low levels who play fairly casually. Real life stuffs and all. Plus I don’t believe we have any “big spenders”, so we’re not exactly flush with +20 emblemed GTV teams and the like.
Scores and titan levels are not my primary concern anyway. Not even really in my top 10 concerns. Main concern is that my members are happy and all get along with and help each other, and no one ever has to fear getting shamed or kicked out over some trivial in-game metric. I’m just like “hey, if you only have 15 minutes a day to play the game, that’s cool, take a couple swipes at the titan when you can, opt out of wars, we’ll see ya when we see ya… don’t work too hard out there!”
That’s the standard I set because I know life happens, and I’m not going to set a ridiculously high standard when I know that I myself might not always be able to meet them, depending on whatever I might have going on at the time.
I am constantly amazed at how many Alliance War opponents I face where their alliance descriptions say “inactive for 3 days with no warning = kick”…
… and I see that their own leader hasn’t been online in 87 days…
I have no intentions of holding anyone else in my alliance up to a standard that I can’t always promise to meet myself. Stuff happens. There will always be another war or titan. Jobs are more important. Family is more important. Health (both physical and mental) is more important. Take care of what’s important first. Games are for fun in your spare time.
this and the emphasis on respect, are why i’m in your alliance for life no plans to leave, boss.
re the polls, there are just so many possible alliance types out there that I don’t think it’s ever possible to build a poll (not here anyway) that meets all the criteria. one way would be to have a “grid”-like poll where alliances are broken down into criteria (e.g. level of casualness, # of members, emphasis on war, emphasis on titans…)
but that’s not quite possible here, and it also sounds like A LOT of work for a game lol!
Very glad to have you on board! As I mentioned before, there may come a time where I won’t be able to be very active, and if that time comes, I would like you to help watch over the team for me. Just don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.
Probably right about the polls, though. I just wanted to get a general feel of how people here felt about alliances… because I know for some people, alliance is like family… for others, alliance is just a loose knit group of strangers who are trying to get loot.
I’m constantly amazed when I talk to someone from here who is extremely knowledgeable, has strong heroes, high player and trophy level, etc., and I find out that they’re in a solo alliance…?
I know, different strokes for different folks… I just assumed that most of the regular posters here were all in top 100 type alliances. I’m just very curious to see what factors most people take into consideration when deciding what alliance will eventually become their permanent home… or if they even want a permanent home in the first place.
One choice I forgot to include in one of my polls, when asking what kind of qualities people were looking for in a leader, somebody mentioned that I should have included the option of a clear, concise leader who makes all the standards known from day one, so that nobody is ever confused.
Please do let me know if I’ve ever been unclear about anything. I am very forgiving when it comes to absences and stuff like that due to real life reasons, in keeping with the theme of this thread. That doesn’t mean it’s a “free for all” where everyone can just do whatever they want, I do expect people to try when they’re able to (with obvious exceptions, like when we’re letting a titan go on purpose, nobody has to hit it if they don’t want to… and nobody has to opt into wars unless they want to… etc.). But even if I did begin to suspect that someone wasn’t “doing their part” or whatever, I’d certainly have a talk with them first before considering a boot.
People first, period. Alliance and game “obligations” are always secondary.
you thoughtful man you. don’t worry, all expectations and standards are clear… and your leadership style is like, nobody would ever be afraid to ask for clarification!
for me, i always looked for an alliance where i could be comfy in. most important thing to me. which i found in our alliance
I took an enforced break due to some personal issues recently and it (reasons) can take a while to get over. Raiding? Once in 2.5 weeks and I mucked that up. Fortunately I am lucky to be part of a really supportive alliance.
I mostly find raids to be a pointless exercise in futility anyway.
Put yourself through a bunch of stress and pressure and raid your way up into diamond? Yay! Right? Until you get your loot, and it sucks. And 5 minutes after you log off, you lost 200 cups, so you’re right back where you started again.
I don’t care how many cups anyone has or how many raids they do. That’s a personal basis kind of thing anyway. Some alliances care because cup level determines alliance level… ummm and? So? It’s still an arbitrary number at the end of the day, isn’t it?
Only alliance score that actually affects us is war score. The higher the score, the stronger our opponents. But - that comes with the territory. If you win a lot, your score will be high. If you lose a lot, your score will be low. I’d rather win a lot, personally. Even if it means the next opponent is going to toss me around like a rag doll. That’s just the risk you take. The only alternative is losing a bunch until you no longer get tossed around like a rag doll, then you have a fair shot again, then you start winning again, and… well, eventually you find yourself back in the same situation again anyway.
Pretty much the same with raids. It all balances out eventually, and you can never (nor should you ever) expect to win them all. Learning how to accept inevitable losses is kind of par for the course in this game. Being in an alliance of people who understand that because they’ve been there themselves and don’t fault you for your losses is always a plus.
You’re always welcome to vent and complain about bad boards, overpowered opponents picking on you, etc. in our alliance. And you’re also always welcome to say “this game is pissing me off right now! I need a break!” at any time. You’ll get no judgment from me. Your seat is reserved and we’re not accepting new applications aside from the 6 players I have already pre-approved (and we have 9 open spots… so like I said… your seat is reserved).
You’ll get to learn I have a routine. My post in alliance chat were about my confusion with being raided up into danger territory. How can you gain over 300 cups by doing nothing?
Has happened to me before too. One of the first times I successfully raided myself up into diamond, I expected to be knocked back down the next day. Had like 2430 cups when I logged off. Logged in the next day to see I had over 2500.
Like how in the hell did that happen???
I dunno. Sometimes it just does.
EDIT: IIRC one guy who was higher level than me raided me 3 times in a row and lost every time, gave me like 150 cups.
Now I don’t know if he was cup dropping on purpose, or if he just had really bad boards that day, or if he just completely underestimated the “synergy” of my defense team… (not that it’s a great defense team, but it’s the best I’ve been able to come up with so far using the heroes I’ve got)…
Whatever the case, I gained trophies. Not complaining about that though. It was nice to feel like one of the big shots for a brief while.
Didn’t last long, eventually got knocked back down to platinum again.
Nowadays I mostly find that my “comfort zone” is around 2300 cups. Any lower than 2200, I need to do some raids to get myself back up. Anything over diamond, it’s only a matter of time before somebody smacks me back down to platinum… and then my watchtower revenge list is full of a bunch of heavily emblemed TellyVela type nonsense where the only way I can win is with a decent starting board.
And yeah yeah blah blah tile skills blah blah. Some people still pretending that a player with a weak roster can beat a much stronger team even if they have a horrible board… LOL no. I don’t care how “skilled” anyone is, or thinks they are, if you go up against a much stronger team and you get ugly boards? You gonna die, son!
I get you, I also try not to get too many cups. Like, if I have 2550 I stop doing offensive raids (unless I have a raid chest to fill), because getting above 2600 opens me up to being smacked around by players with really strong defenses. And it personally annoys me when I have an un-revenged attacker laughing at me in my watchtower
Ah, but my much higher leveled brother, you usually do hold over 2500 cups. You are our alliance’s top cup holder, and I expect you to stay up there!
Just kidding. Feel free to cup drop any time you like.
Every once in a while I try to “catch up” to you and our other stronger members on cups, war scores and titan scores and such… but really that’s just for my own amusement. Like that one time when I briefly had more cups than you. I was strutting around like I was 10 feet tall.
Lasted all of about 5 minutes, but it felt good at the time.
I appreciate this thread being bumped by discussion/posts, but request we do our best to try and stay a little bit more clearly on topic concerning mental health, E&P and how to support alliance members.
I hope no one flags any posts. I find that the discussion has merits related to the topic by discussing the benefits of alliances, trophies and the benefits to maintaining good mental health with the reduced pressures of a more casual alliance compared to the minimum trophy, titan hit and war team requirements that other alliances may adhere to more rigorously.
Anyway, hoping everyone is doing what’s necessary to maintain good mental health.
it definitely helps to vent in alliance chat. if newer members realize that longer-time players also go through (or went through) similar struggles and challenges, it helps a lot.
i missed that as a newer player, my first alliance was uncommunicative. when we split off to create our own alliance, I was the senior player already. going on the forums helped a bit, and now in my new home even though i have the most cups, i feel very well supported especially when i need to vent (i.e. bad raiding day)
I feel you @sft1965 . I generally control it well, but when I’m stressed or frustrated or exhausted I tend to over-analyze or over-react to what people say/do. I try to count to ten, but it doesn’t always help.
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? Was great to rethink my attack teams and actually use my blue heros.
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