Switching squads mid-event

[IPA] Markas

I searched in the forums for an answer but didn't get a hit. Apologies if this has been answered.

What happens to the VP for a player who is a squad leader that moves squads mid-event? Do they surrender the VP they earned as leader when they move over? Does their squad lose any VP for the crew that had been shared with them?

Roadrunner {SG-66}

[IPA] Admiral Markas wrote: »

I searched in the forums for an answer but didn't get a hit. Apologies if this has been answered.

What happens to the VP for a player who is a squad leader that moves squads mid-event? Do they surrender the VP they earned as leader when they move over? Does their squad lose any VP for the crew that had been shared with them?

No, your VP and teammates VP remains untouched.

[IPA] Markas

Excellent...thanks!

Data1001

Some fleets do this to artificially boost their squadron rankings during Faction events, however — which is kind of a jerk move, in my not so humble opinion.

[IPA] Markas

Data1001 wrote: »

Some fleets do this to artificially boost their squadron rankings during Faction events, however — which is kind of a jerk move, in my not so humble opinion.

I missed seeing this. My intention was around the times when a squad is formed with players "going for it" and one finds out they can't play as expected. I want to be able to move someone who is playing better in a more junior squad into the slot of a premier squad.

I would never allow any kind of artificial boosts to occur in my fleet for any reason. Any of that kind of "cheating" is nauseating.

Travis S McClain

[IPA] Markas wrote: »

Data1001 wrote: »

Some fleets do this to artificially boost their squadron rankings during Faction events, however — which is kind of a jerk move, in my not so humble opinion.

I missed seeing this. My intention was around the times when a squad is formed with players "going for it" and one finds out they can't play as expected. I want to be able to move someone who is playing better in a more junior squad into the slot of a premier squad.

I would never allow any kind of artificial boosts to occur in my fleet for any reason. Any of that kind of "cheating" is nauseating.

Isn't the effect the same, though, regardless of the intent? You're still swapping out Player A for Player B because Player A will pad the stats for a Squadron that's "going for it".

Mind you, I'm entirely indifferent to the matter of changing Squadron rosters throughout an event. I don't see it as "cheating". I'm not even entirely sure I'd go so far as to characterize it as an "exploit".

[IPA] Markas

Perhaps the effect is the same but it isn't the intent at all. We switch up squad members for every event. We do have some static squads but have several that get rearranged before each event based on predicted performance.

I have had members approach me after the event begins to say they won't be able to play much in the event and have offered to move out due to that. On an occasional basis, and by occasional, I mean once every few months, I don't see an issue with accommodating that.

Travis S McClain

[IPA] Markas wrote: »

Perhaps the effect is the same but it isn't the intent at all. We switch up squad members for every event. We do have some static squads but have several that get rearranged before each event based on predicted performance.

I have had members approach me after the event begins to say they won't be able to play much in the event and have offered to move out due to that. On an occasional basis, and by occasional, I mean once every few months, I don't see an issue with accommodating that.

I don't see an issue with accommodating it, either. I'm not asking you to explain or defend what your Squadron does, and you don't need to. It's perfectly legal and fair to make roster changes during and even throughout an event. And I'll even go so far as to say I believe we *should* be able to do that.

It just strikes me as disingenuous for you to characterize a Squadron that makes roster changes throughout an event for the purpose of ranking higher as a form of "cheating" you find "nauseating" while downplaying when you do it. At the end of the event, your squadron is more competitive with @Data1001's than it would have been if you'd kept the same roster throughout the event. There's no separate leaderboard with Squadrons Who Didn't Make Any Changes Or Only If They Had A Good Reason.

Thorozar

Squad rewards are worth it enough to bother swapping players? I have never once cared what junk i get off squad rewards.

Travis S McClain

Thorozar wrote: »

Squad rewards are worth it enough to bother swapping players? I have never once cared what junk i get off squad rewards.

I don't get it, either. Squadron rewards were, to be kind, modest from the outset. Now that we have the Gauntlet and Voyages, and Skirmishes for that matter, I think it'd be appropriate to revamp Squadron rewards.

Data1001

Travis S McClain wrote: »

Thorozar wrote: »

Squad rewards are worth it enough to bother swapping players? I have never once cared what junk i get off squad rewards.

I don't get it, either. Squadron rewards were, to be kind, modest from the outset. Now that we have the Gauntlet and Voyages, and Skirmishes for that matter, I think it'd be appropriate to revamp Squadron rewards.

That's the thing — ranking high with your squadron is really only for bragging rights, like, "Hey, everyone — check out what we were able to achieve!" Which is why when fleets swap players in and out, in and out, all weekend, just to artificially boost that number, it ticks me off more than you might think. There's nothing at all to "boast" about when you're not using the same 5 players all weekend. Any good fleet could do that kind of swapping and come out with a top 5 squad (well, I mean, unless there are more than 5 fleets who are doing it). It just taints the legitimacy of the "claim to fame", imo. (If there were good solid ranked rewards for squads, I honestly don't know how I'd feel about the issue, but until/unless that happens, that's a moot point, anyway. )

And just for the record, I don't have a problem if some minor squad switching needs to be done during an event, as long as it's not egregious (as in my example above).

AviTrek

Swapping players to get competitive players is fine. The point that crosses the line is when squads swap in players just to cash in rare rewards or in this case play their tickets. If you're trying to get it so that the squad gets more than 60 tickets worth of points just by swapping players, that's when you've gone from getting the best 5 players to compete to creating an artificial squad of more than 5 players.

Thorozar

Meh, who cares about squad ranking. This is a total non issue.

[IPA] Markas

Travis S McClain wrote: »

[IPA] Markas wrote: »

Perhaps the effect is the same but it isn't the intent at all. We switch up squad members for every event. We do have some static squads but have several that get rearranged before each event based on predicted performance.

I have had members approach me after the event begins to say they won't be able to play much in the event and have offered to move out due to that. On an occasional basis, and by occasional, I mean once every few months, I don't see an issue with accommodating that.

I don't see an issue with accommodating it, either. I'm not asking you to explain or defend what your Squadron does, and you don't need to. It's perfectly legal and fair to make roster changes during and even throughout an event. And I'll even go so far as to say I believe we *should* be able to do that.

It just strikes me as disingenuous for you to characterize a Squadron that makes roster changes throughout an event for the purpose of ranking higher as a form of "cheating" you find "nauseating" while downplaying when you do it. At the end of the event, your squadron is more competitive with @Data1001's than it would have been if you'd kept the same roster throughout the event. There's no separate leaderboard with Squadrons Who Didn't Make Any Changes Or Only If They Had A Good Reason.

I am not sure what you are trying to express here. You don't see an issue with accommodating it, but it is disingenuous to make one early roster change in comparison to switching out throughout an event to maximize a squadron score.

I don't know anyone that cares about squadron rewards, but if I have 4 squad members going for top 250 and one who knows they aren't going to do better than 10k, there is the aspect of striving together as a group that would be enhanced by 5 people aiming for similar rather than being affected by a member who also feels it is unfair to weigh down the rest of their squad.

And there I went and explained and defended.

(HGH)Apollo

Data1001 wrote: »

Travis S McClain wrote: »

Thorozar wrote: »

Squad rewards are worth it enough to bother swapping players? I have never once cared what junk i get off squad rewards.

I don't get it, either. Squadron rewards were, to be kind, modest from the outset. Now that we have the Gauntlet and Voyages, and Skirmishes for that matter, I think it'd be appropriate to revamp Squadron rewards.

That's the thing — ranking high with your squadron is really only for bragging rights, like, "Hey, everyone — check out what we were able to achieve!" Which is why when fleets swap players in and out, in and out, all weekend, just to artificially boost that number, it ticks me off more than you might think. There's nothing at all to "boast" about when you're not using the same 5 players all weekend. Any good fleet could do that kind of swapping and come out with a top 5 squad (well, I mean, unless there are more than 5 fleets who are doing it). It just taints the legitimacy of the "claim to fame", imo. (If there were good solid ranked rewards for squads, I honestly don't know how I'd feel about the issue, but until/unless that happens, that's a moot point, anyway. )

And just for the record, I don't have a problem if some minor squad switching needs to be done during an event, as long as it's not egregious (as in my example above).

I just assume all the top fleets are doing these swaps and many other little tricks to be top squad just some are better at it than others. I see these tricks as strategy and far less cheaty than people that just buy tons of chrons or boosts to get to the top.

Data1001

(HGH)Apollo wrote: »

I just assume all the top fleets are doing these swaps and many other little tricks to be top squad just some are better at it than others. I see these tricks as strategy and far less cheaty than people that just buy tons of chrons or boosts to get to the top.

Having been in a top 5 Galaxy event squadron (which used the same 5 players from start to finish), it was easier to get a handle on the one or two squads who we could see were getting VP jumps that just weren't feasible unless they were shuttling players in, having them cash in their rare rewards, then shuttling them out again.

Also, to be clear, I don't like the word "cheating" regarding doing that — and I never used that term myself — I just don't think it's being very sporting. And, as I mentioned, one of the main reasons I think that is because there aren't any particularly worthwhile rewards for having a top squad — thus, it's purely for bragging rights. But "bragging rights" assumes that you have accomplished something which is difficult to do. Doing the swapping method stated in the above paragraph isn't difficult in the slightest, however — it's only boorish, and it also makes any claim of "whoo-hoo, we are a #1 squad!" completely bogus.

(Spending money on an event to achieve a higher individual rank — which I have zero issue with, btw — is a totally different topic.)

[IPA] Markas

Data1001 wrote: »

(HGH)Apollo wrote: »

I just assume all the top fleets are doing these swaps and many other little tricks to be top squad just some are better at it than others. I see these tricks as strategy and far less cheaty than people that just buy tons of chrons or boosts to get to the top.

Having been in a top 5 Galaxy event squadron (which used the same 5 players from start to finish), it was easier to get a handle on the one or two squads who we could see were getting VP jumps that just weren't feasible unless they were shuttling players in, having them cash in their rare rewards, then shuttling them out again.

Also, to be clear, I don't like the word "cheating" regarding doing that — and I never used that term myself — I just don't think it's being very sporting. And, as I mentioned, one of the main reasons I think that is because there aren't any particularly worthwhile rewards for having a top squad — thus, it's purely for bragging rights. But "bragging rights" assumes that you have accomplished something which is difficult to do. Doing the swapping method stated in the above paragraph isn't difficult in the slightest, however — it's only boorish, and it also makes any claim of "whoo-hoo, we are a #1 squad!" completely bogus.

(Spending money on an event to achieve a higher individual rank — which I have zero issue with, btw — is a totally different topic.)

I agree that the term cheating should be replaced with unsporting. I also agree with the spending money on an event. It's a game after all and DB is a business.

SMM

Even if squad rewards were good I'd say squad swapping was fair game. It can be done so that is that. I've never done it and have been playing virtually from the start. If that is what people want to do that's up to them. Not cheating, not unsporting and so on. However if things were change to make this practice obsolete I would be just as happy.

SoupKitchen Riker

Its allowed, like it or not. The beauty of the forums, though, is that one can give his/her opinion on such allowances.