I feel as though alliance servers are liable to unilaterally determine the adventure's outcome.

  • The Old Soul800
    Marauder
    Insider

    For those of you unfamiliar, alliance servers are when a group of people, probably on Discord, all load into the game at the same time over and over until they get all 5 ships on a game server to be theirs. Then they maintain those ships, that server, for a theoretically limitless amount of time. In practice there's of course all those maintenance server shutdowns and times-of-day where there's not enough players to keep the ships, but the point it these groups create long stretches of time where players in their group can go on their comandeered server to play the game wholely uncontested.

    These groups are going to have ships on their servers doing the sea forts.
    Those ships are going to go around and put up their sides flag on every fort on the map, and turn in every doll to the same side, massively raking in points with no chance of being contested, converting entire game servers into effective point farms for whichever side they want.

    One would hope it would at least be circumstantial which side that is, that whichever particular player(s) on the ship at a given time is deciding the side, so that it'll keep switching back and forth every few hours.
    But imagine that the types of players regularly using those servers are disproportionately in favor of one side, or that the people who run those servers care enough that they make it a rule of their servers that you have to support the side they chose. It could become effectively impossible for the other side to win.

    Even without that though, playing and partaking in the "fight" on "regular" servers seems almost pointless, because even if the alliance servers don't unilaterally force one side to win, then the fight is just alliance servers vs different alliance servers, uncontested risk free farm ships vs other uncontested risk free farm ships, with "live" players unable to meaningfully contribute.

    I'm down with the presence of "vs-adventures" where players influence which of two outcomes occurs, in a pvp-goal-achievement way, and frankly I don't mind that alliance servers exist, but shouldn't those "vs-adventures" be designed, if possible, in a way where the alliance servers don't become solely responsible for the outcome?

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  • Grog Minto
    Master
    Insider

    I doubt that they will influence the outcome that much. Don't get me wrong : they could do what you describe ! But that doesn't make money, that doesn't get them commendations. Most people wouldn't go to Alliance servers if not to grind gold / commendation without risk. I think we're safe. ;)

  • BurnBacon
    Vanguard
    Insider

    This would only be a problem if the overall was true. Our time actually matters?
    Is the outcome really gonna be our choice or has it already been set.

    Think about it. If we prevent Flameheart from resurrecting, what gonna happen? End of the story? Kind of a pointless thing for such a villain who been in the background.

    I say he will be resurrected no matter what.
    But the question is…what is his next move?

  • GoldsMen
    Captain
    Insider

    @burnbacon said in I feel as though alliance servers are liable to unilaterally determine the adventure's outcome.:

    This would only be a problem if the overall was true. Our time actually matters?
    Is the outcome really gonna be our choice or has it already been set.

    Think about it. If we prevent Flameheart from resurrecting, what gonna happen? End of the story? Kind of a pointless thing for such a villain who been in the background.

    I say he will be resurrected no matter what.
    But the question is…what is his next move?

    My current standing theory is if pendragon wins, the servant would take his fathers name as he once tried before when he thought his father was dead, and seek vengeance as the new king of the reapers.

  • Karkona
    Commander

    I thought alliance servers were actually a small percentage of the players (because its boring), I could be wrong.

  • WolfManbush
    Champion

    @karkona said in I feel as though alliance servers are liable to unilaterally determine the adventure's outcome.:

    I thought alliance servers were actually a small percentage of the players (because its boring), I could be wrong.

    actual numbers aren't really anything us in the public know

    but what many of us with a lot of experience know in the organic environment (non hopping for targets, non alliance servers) is that activity has gone way down organically and the production on these alliance servers is astronomically high compared to the organic experience.

    Us in the organic experience are running into the same group of people regularly so that percentage is bound to be significantly higher than it's ever been claimed to be.

    Also not all server alliances are massive productions. I know many people that are part of much much smaller operations that are still taking over servers just the same. Lots of facebook group type of stuff going on as well with server alliances.

    It is a very very different environment than when they said "we are keeping an eye on it"

  • PithyRumble
    Sailor
    Insider

    Doesn't matter. They already decided what was going to happen.

  • NeedSmokes
    Commander

    Adventures only exist for one reason. And that's to try to encourage people to play the game more often.
    And it works. I probably wouldn't have played again until season 8 drops, but I logged in to complete this adventure for a few hours. I'm sure there will be many more like me.

  • VaughnSilver
    Master
    Insider

    I personally agree that having a safe space like an alliance server could sway results.

    The way this adventure calculates points most likely can be taken advantage of by an organized alliance.

    If all forts are controlled by a single side and forts are constantly raided for dolls the point multiplier can make a difference in the results BUT this would need pirates, organization and effort so unless all players in these safe space servers dropped everything to try to make a difference to sway the vote we may only see a small impact by these alliance servers.

    I belive the masses will decide the vote but gathering together, naturally or not will give big boosts.

  • FrenziedRoach
    Ship Mate

    I don't disagree that they have a rather sizable impact, but I suspect the ratio of Pendragon to Flameheart adherents are the same among them as even the most ardent PvE player wants a shot at crossing swords with the big-baddie himself.

    So to me, I believe it evens out. I'm not a fan of the Alliance servers as they screw the Ledger scores way out of whack and those providing the service for money are part of a gray market that inevitably leads to more bad actors getting involved, but I don't think they are having an impact on this particular event in a way that matters.

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