one should note that he was also soloing those weeks. where as raiders in the same bracket did not win.

headsets doesn’t look overrun by raiders this week, by any means. the scoop counts are pretty low. two members in there are actively raiding, and they have about 50 and 39 scoops each, and 30 cards. not necessarily unsurmountable.

this further demonstrates that its the klan-loading of the bracket, and not the raid mechanics itself that is the root of the problem.

PDB – you cut off that chat quote just before I said I thought that would be too harsh. That klan deserved a perk for raiding, but that the perk shouldn’t be so big that winners can be predetermined. Log in to see images!

I’ve always supported klan raiding. I’ve also always supported nerfing klan vanilla. Currently klan vanilla is not competitive. PDB, you personally commented that this season’s winners had loosely been decided. If the outcome is predetermined it is not a competition, it is a schedule.

The top bracket situation is completely reasonable to look at. If nothing changes where will all the people from the one and only serious raiding klan be 5 or 6 weeks into next season? Same place.

As to why klan raiders don’t do as well in other brackets – because they aren’t playing those brackets. If only one character can click “join raid” and that character is in the top bracket, that means any other alt is playing as a solo player. Prior to the 1 character per raid rule klan vanilla was also dominating every bracket they were in.

The week that was pointed out – Ming/Squidly only had solo scoops that week and won because they are a damn good player.

Current week headsets? I have alts in that bracket, are you actually trying to say that those characters have full guns raided this week? emojah and Stud made one raid as far as I could see, and I have attended both of this week’s raids. Log in to see images! naughty-mayhem showed up late to raids missing the first 2 hours of 1 or both. Ming has been joining a raid once a week at most for almost 2 months now.

Rotating medals keeps that top bracket locked. Rotating might be fair klan play, but it also serves to ensure that support players don’t drop out. After all, if they dropped out of that bracket there wouldn’t be 7 – 10 bodies with klan vanilla level scoops to act as meat shields and to destroy every available non-klan scoop.

Perhaps klan players have a skewed perspective as to what a reasonable benefit should be due to months of piles and piles of vanilla. Personally I think a very reasonable benefit would be an extra 200 scoops per week. Effectively giving a klan player 25% – 33% more scoops than a solo player could achieve. That in combination with the obvious advantage of having other players to work with is a good, but not overwhelming advantage.

Honestly, I don’t see why all the hoops and restrictions are being considered. Limit the thing to one 2 hour raid per week per player with a 200 scoop cap. Let alts play, don’t restrict number of bodies in a raid. Hell, they could even reinstate the thing where forums could be overwritten. Raiders wouldn’t feel like they were being under rewarded for their time investment, and the benefit wouldn’t be so big that solo players feel like raiders are buying the win. Klans working together will still have a serious advantage.

I think it’s a shame that everyone seems to think cooperative game play is 100% equal to klan raiding. In my mind cooperative game play has to do with strategy, plotting, diversionary tactics, making a sacrifice to advance the team. The current epic strategy in klan vanilla is show up.

well just the “join/leave only once a day” thing would restrict raiding to the value you suggest.

also ming hasn’t been raiding with the clan.

and emojah showed up late to the second raid, i know stud showed up to both.

point being the real raid effect is still only in the top bracket. and skewed.

PDB: So if you were in headsets this week you’d have 30 cards and only 40 – 50 scoops? I see. Yes, you are probably right. I’m sure that the headsets bracket players have been playing more serious destruction against Stud, Emojah and naughty than the destruction that has been played this week in the top bracket. Man, those guys are hardcore. Good thing you don’t have to deal with that nightmare bracket! Log in to see images!

Ricket: You are correct. 100%. When the new season hits, especially if the brackets are the 50ish player size, if the mbumes decide that raiders are not allowed to medal then raiders won’t medal.

Of course we all know that this will never be the reality. It requires large numbers of players committing to play their hardest, not for a reward, but solely to hinder a certain group of players. We’ve already established that the majority of players have zero interest in playing if there is no reward potential. You hear it all the time, “I can’t win, I won’t be playing this week.” Players stop playing when they feel like they don’t have a chance. Those same players that choose to flezz grind or whatever when facing klan vanilla certainly aren’t going to spend their time not medaling to keep you from medaling when the new season starts. The whole idea that 20% or more of any given bracket must choose to lose in order to prevent a broken mechanic from overrunning everything else is silly.

I will say it just as simply: the only thing the current changes to vanilla made was forcing raids to take longer and eliminating meat towers on alts in the lower brackets. Under the current cirgreat timesstances klan players, as long as they possess one alt to contribute visits with, do not need to use a visit within a raid with their main character. Main character – join raid. Alts – run visits. Main character – run solo vanilla. Beyond losing the ability to medal in lower brackets without even looking at the character during the week and having it take longer to alt swap, I’m curious what you think the huge hit to klan vanilla has been.

Edit: Also, I’m really sick of arguing with you guys. We obviously look at competitive play and cooperative play differently. I’m personally happy when I see you grab a medal. But, I intensely dislike that the “it’s a given” nature of those medals is encouraging players leave the game.

Stay on target. In looking at the top bracket and the winners from the previous top brackets.. I think it’s hard to argue that there is not an issue with vanilla. So again. Stay on target. Log in to see images!

BINGEBOT 2015 Posted:

Stay on target. In looking at the top bracket and the winners from the previous top brackets.. I think it’s hard to argue that there is not an issue with vanilla. So again. Stay on target. Log in to see images!

the issue isn’t really with vanilla though, its with the fact that the top bracket is packed with one clan.

Ricket Posted:

Okay Binge, I’ve got an idea, then. 2 weeks from now*, another theme week: No klan raiding.

If I’m right in that the issue is more to do with the top bracket being loaded half-way with Ep. 2 folks, playing hard and smart, and not with klan vanilla, we should still manage a decent win that week.

*Two weeks, ‘cause next week is going to be a cluster**** with cards flying everywhere.

Well.. I never said that the bracket grouping worked perfectly either. But there’s no thread to discuss suggestions for that.. yet.. It’s on my list of things to address too. So yes, if we did a week with no klan vanilla you’d still all be grouped together, cause of your medals.. you’d just have less scoops to compete with.. and the equivalent as everyone else.. Except for PDB who will continue to get endless choco scoops cause of their FB score..

scullyangel Posted:

Current week headsets? I have alts in that bracket, are you actually trying to say that those characters have full guns raided this week? emojah and Stud made one raid as far as I could see, and I have attended both of this week’s raids. Log in to see images!

Just for the record, I haven’t raided this week, nor, frankly, have I even been trying to get scoops. That I got as many scoops as I did is just a matter of time and camwhore speed.

I was getting consecutive e-peen the first half of the week, and just blowing visits to scoop up my non-clanned alts faster. I just got the cards for the sake of not seeing my news full of ‘You’ve been screwed!’ messages, so I could keep better track of where I was in my consecutive e-peen. (And now I’ve spent some of them, ‘cause I had them, not that I’m going to get any medals)

With a bit of effort, people ought to be able to do better than I did this week in Headsets alone (at least every other week, for the higher consecutive scoops).

But, as noted, I haven’t really been watching the bracket, so I don’t know what’s happened there all week. But, I’d think that if everyone in the bracket got scoops like I did, and used them meaningfully, StudmuffinXV and emojah wouldn’t be taking the bracket so completely. (And I don’t know that they’ve taken the round yet, as it looks like lollie and SG are trying, and they have some cards there, and they could have 12 visits to run yet)

naughty-mayhem edited this message on 08/20/2008 10:02AM

Hi, some questions about klan vanilla:

1) I was told solo vanilla is negated during klan raids. This is true?

2) From my reading here, you just have to sit on a raid to get scoops?

3) Clan-joined alts cannot participate in a raid, but non-clan ones can push forums, correct?

4) There’s currently no limit on raid participants?

Thanks.