While a high rank in general will clear some of the achievements, I'm mostly interested in the chances of winning a faction event as a low spender. I'm talking about saving up resources for about two years (assuming that the game will exist for that long). Even as a monthly card player, if I don't spend any of my dilithium, I could have 72.000 of it ready to use after 24 months (+ the 11.000 that I have now). And that's a plausible scenario as my current goals in this game are:
- get Arachnia
- reach lv99
- win an event (?)
If Arachnia drops out of a merit pack, ends up in a campaign or I get her in the next honor sale, I will have nothing left to spend dilithium on. I would save it in case a new card that I really want ends up in a Tuesday pack or for a possible win in a faction event.
I mean, I suppose that the player who won the last one won't go for a win in all faction events of the next 2 years.
And I know that it's a lot less expensive to win a Skirmish or Galaxy event, but I hate Galaxy events and I'm not willing to put in the time that a Skirmish win would require. It will have to be a Faction or nothing.
I see a lot of things, like growing collective hopelessness.
I see no point in trying to win a faction event when the same players regularly buy 1st-75th place with dilithium. That is their choice & that’s cool, but it’s not fun for me, so I choose to not compete in these. 🖖
I earned top 50 once, but I expended a phenomenal amount of long-saved resources. I can't imagine the saved resources required for top 5. I wonder how much money people put into it? I figure it would be far cheaper to buy the crew outright.
I mean, I suppose that the player who won the last one won't go for a win in all faction events of the next 2 years.
As noted above, you would have to ask. It's been a while since a faction event was won by someone other than the last event winner.
I didn't realize that this was actually an "all events" and not a "lots of events thing"
Then I guess I'll just never clear the last achievement.
If the company ever does a mid-week mini-event again, then I might have a chance to clear that last achievement. Otherwise, yeah, I’m in the same boat as you.
“It is what it is” disagrees with my OCD.
☮️
"In the short run, the game defines the players. But in the long run, it's us players who define the game." — Nicky Case, The Evolution of Trust
First of all I'd like to say I understand why people are frustrated that MECHAlobe has the uncanny ability to dominate faction events. But there really seems to be an agenda against MECHAlobe based on the comments/abuse he receives every single faction event, and the applause both his opponents and players dominant in our events/ftm receive.
I find it very interested that when MECHAlobe burns dilithium in an event, he bought the event. When his opponents do the same they are applauded. Some groups were comparing this event to David vs Goliath when Torsten-Islay was ahead. However, "David" is a multiple event champion and really one of the most dangerous players in the game, who in this specific event got to 4M VP in less than 24 hrs (a new record time to reach 4M VP I believe). However, when MECHAlobe responded, even before reaching 4M VP he was getting messages that he's the worst, childish, he doesn't understand how to play the game, his play style is slap-stick etc etc etc, and that to redeem himself somewhat he should allow Torsten-Islay to win. So that's MECH's experience. Move over to Torsten-Islay (and he's welcome to correct me if I'm wrong, I don't have access to his DM's) but certainly publicly receiving lot of praise and support. And it's like hang on a sec.... they've both used effectively the same principle strategy, Torsten-Islay had invested more, and the feedback they were receiving were poles apart. And please don't take this as 'Rowden's right, we should criticise/send abusive messages to Torsten too.....NO..... you should not be doing it to either of them. Also, these people couldn't be more insulting regarding their opinion of the multiple event winner Torsten-Islay that the only way he could have won is if MECH surrendered part way through the event. And if I put myself in Torsten's shoes I would be appalled if I knew my opponent was receiving calls to surrender the event to prove they're a decent human being. The top players want to play the most successful players at the top of their game, that's how you challenge and improve yourself. Just a quick tangent on this point, when you change MECHAlobe's name to make it more robotic, please consider whether you are doing that to dehumanise him.
The agenda becomes even more clear when you compare the treatment he's received compared with dominant players in other events.
-The top 25 in skirmish-type events is highly similar each event, much more similar than in faction events. The same for the winners. So in other words skirmish events are being dominated by a small group of players. These players do not receive anywhere near the amount of criticism/abuse MECH does, and usually receive a lot of praise. When they do receive it its usually due to confusion regarding if they are macroing and very rarely are players accused of buying the event (I believe has only happened once) or just wasting their time.
-In Expedition events, a single player (myself) has won 4/12 (1/3 as a proportion) of events. No other player has won more than a single expedition type event. This is a far higher proportion than the % faction events MECHAlobe has won. I'm not saying this to boast, but to point out I do not receive anywhere near the amount of comments MECHAlobe does, and I've also currently won more events than him.
-Galaxy events have become a lot cheaper now due to voyages but they used to be far in a way the most expensive event to win (which is why you need to really appreciate the achievements of both free to play Iknamur and Stellar Ice in winning galaxy events in this time frame). Never has any galaxy event winner received the persistent abuse MECH gets. I don't know if this is related in some way to VIPO players winning them on occasion that people have a misunderstanding on how difficult they were to win. The players Iknamur and Stellar Ice were playing against, and beat, no doubt spent $600-$1000+ on that event, and lost. Just let that sink in and recognise the achievements of these two.
Also even a huge difference in spend in the event, and this applies to all of them, does not guarantee beating even someone who sent nothing. Preparation is so important. This is true in faction events, recently [KM] Empress Penguin (who is a mainly a daily card and campaign budget account) won a faction event spending zero dil, and got to the usual VP MECHAlobe gets when he wins. So with all the outrage 'I'm not going to play faction events because it's all pay to win', very recently Express Penguin has proved you can even win the even on a very small budget if you strategise and engage in long-term planning.
I realise those who are sending him abusing DM's etc will do so even more I've brought this up. He's not someone who gets overly upset by it, I'm just very disappointed in the community and thought people maybe would benefit from seeing things from another point of view.
I mean, I suppose that the player who won the last one won't go for a win in all faction events of the next 2 years.
As noted above, you would have to ask. It's been a while since a faction event was won by someone other than the last event winner.
The comment 'It's been a while since a faction event was won by someone other than the last event winner' is incorrect. Runaway Bride was won by Empress Penguin.
Rowdy, that with Empress Penguin may be right, but she's in the same fleet, so Mechie surely let her win that one. I don't care who wins any event, because I know I can't win any event with the amount of work I have even during weekends. But I also hoped Torsti would win this one because Mechie wins 98 purrcent of all shuttle events and so ... underdug always gets more cheers. ^^ I have never sent any message to Mechie, but I did send a support message in German language to Torsti.
"Everything about the Jem'Hadar is lethal!" - Eris (ST-DS9 Episode 2x26 "The Jem'Hadar")
Rowdy, that with Empress Penguin may be right, but she's in the same fleet, so Mechie surely let her win that one. I don't care who wins any event, because I know I can't win any event with the amount of work I have even during weekends. But I also hoped Torsti would win this one because Mechie wins 98 purrcent of all shuttle events and so ... underdug always gets more cheers. ^^ I have never sent any message to Mechie, but I did send a support message in German language to Torsti.
Supporting Torsti is wonderful. I'm very supportive of that kind of behaviour. It's just the comparison of how these two players were treated, for doing the same thing, is really telling. And it happens every faction event, I just used this event as an example. The comments to MECH actually start before the event does.
I get why people would support the underdog. Also I think people think MECHAlobe wins more events than he does, KM have won 13 of the last 14 faction events but MECH has *only* won 10, the non-KM in that was eXo SilverRose. If you look at the last 20 faction events MECH has a win percentage of 50%, goes lower the further back you include. These percentages are ridiculously high, but not near 98%.
Rowdy, that with Empress Penguin may be right, but she's in the same fleet, so Mechie surely let her win that one. I don't care who wins any event, because I know I can't win any event with the amount of work I have even during weekends. But I also hoped Torsti would win this one because Mechie wins 98 purrcent of all shuttle events and so ... underdug always gets more cheers. ^^ I have never sent any message to Mechie, but I did send a support message in German language to Torsti.
I also don't plan to win. But if Empress Penguin is indeed in the same fleet, then @SSR Barkley was being more serious than I realized about asking to win.
I'm cool with folks buying the victory like that. It keeps the game running. I don't vilify on that basis. But if there is a gatekeeper for first place, then I think anyone considering a run for first place should be aware of that. It would cost too much (imo) to go for first place and not realistically even have a chance to achieve it. Unless they go in knowing the full situation. If they know and make a run anyway, that's on them. In that case, may the best captain win.
Fwiw, I have never sent a mean message to anyone in first place in any event. I never will. And I will have words with anyone in my fleet if I ever find them doing it. That is certainly not something that I want in the community.
Frankly, I think of it as "How Bad Do You Want It?" (Great song- starts with the story of Robert Johnson)
I am a spender, but not crazy. $100 in a month would be in the upper end of average. I don't have that kind of roster depth to really consider it. How to spend my limited resources and maximize my time is part of the fun for me.
I'm a competitive player, just not that level. I don't have the roster of ships or crew yet. Maybe in a year when it develops more. Right now my ENG and MED pool are shallow enough I can't produce 10 of either with over 800 core. I have some nice one coming up, but I have only ONE immortalized gold with ENG primary. I had no immortalized MED golds when the Bones McCoy limited achievements were up. I was on those relentlessly.
I want success, but I want to earn it. You can have anything if you pay enough, but I like DIY. Now, off I go. I should have some shuttles back. :crosses fingers for the right parts:
W.W. CarlislePlayed since January 20, 2019Captain Level- 99 (May 9, 2022)VIP 14Crew Quarters: 485/485Most recent/Lowest- Anbo-jyutsu Kyle Riker (1/5* Lvl 30) 5/29/23Immortalized x-866 5* x184, 4* x 490, 3* x91, 2* x62, and 1* x27Most recent Immortal - Tearful Janeway 4* 5/25/23Current non-event project- Improving my Science base skill. Retrieval Project- Mestral 1/5*
The way this conversation has gone really hammers home how quite exclusive the top 10 ranks or so, regardless of event type, really are. There are tens of thousands of players, 2000 or so of which have the resources and desire to put serious effort into events, and hundreds (if not thousands) of fleets - and yet, there seems to be a tiny fraction of both populations that have a reasonable chance of winning, most of whom appear to be concentrated in just a few fleets. For anyone who still harbors thoughts of winning a Faction event and isn’t a mega spender, that must be a highly deflating obstacle - at least Skirmish and Galaxy events only require iron thumbs, chrons that can be saved up over a reasonable amount of time, and a very understanding family.
And aside from general human empathy that says it’s wrong to verbally abuse people in a game regardless of how well or poorly they’re doing, I find it a little hard to feel bad for anyone in those top fleets. “MECHAlobe doesn’t win ‘too much’, because two people that aren’t him or otherwise from our fleet have won a Faction event in the last three months” is kind of a silly claim. Like “nobody complains about people buying their way to victory in Skirmish events”...which is because you can’t buy your way to victory in them anyway - you only have 96 hours in which to gain VP, whereas with a Faction event you have every single hour you work at your job to gain resources to convert to VP during the event.
As Lorca said, I wouldn’t send nastygrams to anyone at the top of the leaderboard, I don’t like it when others do it, and there’s no place for that kind of behavior here. Sadly, the sorts of trolls who will verbally harass others won’t ever really go away unless they get bored of the game or find a more tempting target for their vileness...if you don’t want their attention, maybe take a few events off and let someone else make a run for the top.
I think I've actually read complaints from at least a few different players about the nasty messages they receive when they are at rank 1 in an event, so this doesn't seem like a thing that's specifically aimed at MECHAlobe or only happens in factions.
To be clear, I'm not trying to defend it. Harassing people who rank well in events is a crappy thing to do.
Rowdy, that with Empress Penguin may be right, but she's in the same fleet, so Mechie surely let her win that one. I don't care who wins any event, because I know I can't win any event with the amount of work I have even during weekends. But I also hoped Torsti would win this one because Mechie wins 98 purrcent of all shuttle events and so ... underdug always gets more cheers. ^^ I have never sent any message to Mechie, but I did send a support message in German language to Torsti.
I also don't plan to win. But if Empress Penguin is indeed in the same fleet, then @SSR Barkley was being more serious than I realized about asking to win.
I'm cool with folks buying the victory like that. It keeps the game running. I don't vilify on that basis. But if there is a gatekeeper for first place, then I think anyone considering a run for first place should be aware of that. It would cost too much (imo) to go for first place and not realistically even have a chance to achieve it. Unless they go in knowing the full situation. If they know and make a run anyway, that's on them. In that case, may the best captain win.
Fwiw, I have never sent a mean message to anyone in first place in any event. I never will. And I will have words with anyone in my fleet if I ever find them doing it. That is certainly not something that I want in the community.
+1 on all of this.
I like to set long term goals and follow strategies to get there, but there are a lot of things in this game that are out of reach for me and it's good to know right from the beginning what's achievable and what isn't. This looks like one of the things that I should remove from my list.
Sadly, the sorts of trolls who will verbally harass others won’t ever really go away unless they get bored of the game or find a more tempting target for their vileness...
Or they get banned/suspended for this unacceptable behavior.
The way this conversation has gone really hammers home how quite exclusive the top 10 ranks or so, regardless of event type, really are. There are tens of thousands of players, 2000 or so of which have the resources and desire to put serious effort into events, and hundreds (if not thousands) of fleets - and yet, there seems to be a tiny fraction of both populations that have a reasonable chance of winning, most of whom appear to be concentrated in just a few fleets. For anyone who still harbors thoughts of winning a Faction event and isn’t a mega spender, that must be a highly deflating obstacle - at least Skirmish and Galaxy events only require iron thumbs, chrons that can be saved up over a reasonable amount of time, and a very understanding family.
And aside from general human empathy that says it’s wrong to verbally abuse people in a game regardless of how well or poorly they’re doing, I find it a little hard to feel bad for anyone in those top fleets. “MECHAlobe doesn’t win ‘too much’, because two people that aren’t him or otherwise from our fleet have won a Faction event in the last three months” is kind of a silly claim. Like “nobody complains about people buying their way to victory in Skirmish events”...which is because you can’t buy your way to victory in them anyway - you only have 96 hours in which to gain VP, whereas with a Faction event you have every single hour you work at your job to gain resources to convert to VP during the event.
As Lorca said, I wouldn’t send nastygrams to anyone at the top of the leaderboard, I don’t like it when others do it, and there’s no place for that kind of behavior here. Sadly, the sorts of trolls who will verbally harass others won’t ever really go away unless they get bored of the game or find a more tempting target for their vileness...if you don’t want their attention, maybe take a few events off and let someone else make a run for the top.
I'll just respond to this post because you've actually used quote marks in this to indicate you've quoted me twice, but then altered what I said to produce a different meaning.
1.
Your quote "nobody complains about people buying their way to victory in Skirmish events”...which is because you can’t buy your way to victory in them anyway
What I actually said "very rarely are players accused of buying the event (I believe has only happened once)" in the context of skirmish events
Explanation: Players can be accused of buying skirmish and skirmish type events. This is because there is a button where you can spend dil to obtain more rewards. Significant to the event type, these rewards include chronitons and victory points. The chronitons reward means there's no requirement to save lots of chronitons for this event type if you are happy enough to spend dil. The victory points have two significant advantages a) allows you to go faster than you usually could (the more rewards you claim the faster) but if click 1-2 times after every battle will allow you to go 5-10% faster. b) Going 5-10% faster means you can play 5-10% less and get the same score, which in the case of a 4 day event can mean 9 hrs more sleep. This difference is equivalent to an extra 2M VP for the players near the top of the leaderboard. Also, skirmish events can also be the second half of hybrid events, including faction-skirmish events. It's very obvious you can reduce how much time/dil you need to spend in phase 2 skirmish by accumulating more points in the faction phase.
2.
Your quote “MECHAlobe doesn’t win ‘too much’, because two people that aren’t him or otherwise from our fleet have won a Faction event in the last three months” is kind of a silly claim.
What I actually said "If you look at the last 20 faction events MECH has a win percentage of 50%, goes lower the further back you include. These percentages are ridiculously high, but not near 98%."
Explanation: What I said was a 50% win ratio which I accepted was ridiculously high. The point of the other 3 (not 2) KM players who won in his current streak is that people attribute those wins to MECHAlobe. And this is how people think he wins every event (98% win rate was what I was replying to), because even if someone else wins, people for some reason attribute to MECHAlobe. And this is very clear from the comments since my first post i.e. the only reason Empress Penguin won is she's in the same fleet. And missing the point that this win demonstrated you don't need to spend any money to rank very highly in a faction with a low spend account if you are strategic. Unless the suggestion is the entire player base allowed her to win because she's in the same fleet as MECHAlobe.
The way this conversation has gone really hammers home how quite exclusive the top 10 ranks or so, regardless of event type, really are. There are tens of thousands of players, 2000 or so of which have the resources and desire to put serious effort into events, and hundreds (if not thousands) of fleets - and yet, there seems to be a tiny fraction of both populations that have a reasonable chance of winning, most of whom appear to be concentrated in just a few fleets. For anyone who still harbors thoughts of winning a Faction event and isn’t a mega spender, that must be a highly deflating obstacle - at least Skirmish and Galaxy events only require iron thumbs, chrons that can be saved up over a reasonable amount of time, and a very understanding family.
And aside from general human empathy that says it’s wrong to verbally abuse people in a game regardless of how well or poorly they’re doing, I find it a little hard to feel bad for anyone in those top fleets. “MECHAlobe doesn’t win ‘too much’, because two people that aren’t him or otherwise from our fleet have won a Faction event in the last three months” is kind of a silly claim. Like “nobody complains about people buying their way to victory in Skirmish events”...which is because you can’t buy your way to victory in them anyway - you only have 96 hours in which to gain VP, whereas with a Faction event you have every single hour you work at your job to gain resources to convert to VP during the event.
As Lorca said, I wouldn’t send nastygrams to anyone at the top of the leaderboard, I don’t like it when others do it, and there’s no place for that kind of behavior here. Sadly, the sorts of trolls who will verbally harass others won’t ever really go away unless they get bored of the game or find a more tempting target for their vileness...if you don’t want their attention, maybe take a few events off and let someone else make a run for the top.
I'll just respond to this post because you've actually used quote marks in this to indicate you've quoted me twice, but then altered what I said to produce a different meaning.
1.
Your quote "nobody complains about people buying their way to victory in Skirmish events”...which is because you can’t buy your way to victory in them anyway
What I actually said "very rarely are players accused of buying the event (I believe has only happened once)" in the context of skirmish events
Explanation: Players can be accused of buying skirmish and skirmish type events. This is because there is a button where you can spend dil to obtain more rewards. Significant to the event type, these rewards include chronitons and victory points. The chronitons reward means there's no requirement to save lots of chronitons for this event type if you are happy enough to spend dil. The victory points have two significant advantages a) allows you to go faster than you usually could (the more rewards you claim the faster) but if click 1-2 times after every battle will allow you to go 5-10% faster. b) Going 5-10% faster means you can play 5-10% less and get the same score, which in the case of a 4 day event can mean 9 hrs more sleep. This difference is equivalent to an extra 2M VP for the players near the top of the leaderboard. Also, skirmish events can also be the second half of hybrid events, including faction-skirmish events. It's very obvious you can reduce how much time/dil you need to spend in phase 2 skirmish by accumulating more points in the faction phase.
2.
Your quote “MECHAlobe doesn’t win ‘too much’, because two people that aren’t him or otherwise from our fleet have won a Faction event in the last three months” is kind of a silly claim.
What I actually said "If you look at the last 20 faction events MECH has a win percentage of 50%, goes lower the further back you include. These percentages are ridiculously high, but not near 98%."
Explanation: What I said was a 50% win ratio which I accepted was ridiculously high. The point of the other 3 (not 2) KM players who won in his current streak is that people attribute those wins to MECHAlobe. And this is how people think he wins every event (98% win rate was what I was replying to), because even if someone else wins, people for some reason attribute to MECHAlobe. And this is very clear from the comments since my first post i.e. the only reason Empress Penguin won is she's in the same fleet. And missing the point that this win demonstrated you don't need to spend any money to rank very highly in a faction with a low spend account if you are strategic. Unless the suggestion is the entire player base allowed her to win because she's in the same fleet as MECHAlobe.
I don't think the implication is the entire player base allowed her to win. But I do think the implication is MECHAlobe allowed her to win. And I don't think every player can go and ask MECHAlobe to be allowed a week to win. So yes Empress Penguin still had to beat the rest of the players, but if MECHAlobe stepped aside to let her win that's not something other players can expect.
I don't think the implication is the entire player base allowed her to win. But I do think the implication is MECHAlobe allowed her to win. And I don't think every player can go and ask MECHAlobe to be allowed a week to win. So yes Empress Penguin still had to beat the rest of the players, but if MECHAlobe stepped aside to let her win that's not something other players can expect.
This is a slightly dangerous and demeaning route to go because it can be applied to anyone other than MECHAlobe who wins a faction event. If you win, you won. This sort of caveats should not be added.
Quoting Rowden - "The top players want to play the most successful players at the top of their game, that's how you challenge and improve yourself."
I agree with most of your post, so don't take my commentary about this single sentence too negatively, but... this isn't really what faction event winners are doing. In faction events, using cash/dilithium to win doesn't prove much other than who has the biggest wallet. I'm totally cool with him and anyone else doing it this way, but it's not a level playing field for the rest of the crowd that don't have the same disposable income but otherwise do have the crew, the strategies, the time, and the desire to win. Negative DM's are disappointing and unacceptable, but it would be disingenuous to suggest that you can't understand why some players are frustrated that they have seemingly no chance of ever competing for that nagging "Top 1" achievement (or for the glory, or their favorite character, or whatever other reason they may have) via a faction event.
Skirmish win - save some chrons, then don't sleep. No cash needed.
Galaxy win - save more chrons (and/or pre-farm), but sleep slightly more (maybe?). Also no cash needed.
Faction win - save boosts, or don't. Just buy dilithium and instant-complete every shuttle you send. Sleep if you want because you can earn a million vp in a few hours if you have the bankroll. Also helps to have a (presumed) squadmate shadow you near the top of the leaderboard thereby adding lots of shared-crew vp to your total.
Having been around since 2016, I fully understand that faction events were always pay-to-win (despite the occasional no/low spending outliers), and that DB/WRG need income to produce the game. It's all good. But I suspect quite a few different names could be a-top the leaderboard if there were ever to be a no-cash-options faction event. There are plenty of "top" players in the field that just can't match the cash outlay that most winners use.
I don't think the implication is the entire player base allowed her to win. But I do think the implication is MECHAlobe allowed her to win. And I don't think every player can go and ask MECHAlobe to be allowed a week to win. So yes Empress Penguin still had to beat the rest of the players, but if MECHAlobe stepped aside to let her win that's not something other players can expect.
This is a slightly dangerous and demeaning route to go because it can be applied to anyone other than MECHAlobe who wins a faction event. If you win, you won. This sort of caveats should not be added.
If MECHAlobe wants to win every week, that's his business. Honestly I don't care. I'm never going to win an event and I recognize that. My point was simply, if the week he doesn't win someone else in his fleet wins, that's not the same as a random person winning. MECHAlobe let the person win, and he's not doing that for strangers. So that's still a week he controlled the leaderboard.
Respectfully @Rowden, I reject nearly all of your explanation. I do agree that it is nasty when people send mean spirited PMs and I do not support that, but as for the rest, I do not agree.
I am not one of the anti-spending crowd, I am in favor of spending and I support it. I myself am a spender and I have participated in many threads defending the big spenders, here is one such example from several months ago also about spending in Faction events.
When 2020 began and MECHAlobe began his monopoly on Faction events, most people thought it was cool, there was a relatively new face on top for a change. When wins 2 and 3 happened for MECHAlobe most people were like "OK, Dude is flexing to become a household name, OK." Obviously this was starting to make folks nervous but so far there was nothing really to worry about, because the assumption was that after this flexing display was over, things would go back to normal, or some new version of normal.
Then wins 4 through 8 happened, and MECHAlobe kept winning Faction events. Those could be explained away pretty simply by just pointing out that people were now gun shy about taking on MECHAlobe, so he was simply posting a big score on day 1 and coasting, as nobody was really challenging him. No problems there. During that streak the fleet stealing scandal broke and MECHAlobe changed his name to "Don't Tread of Fleets" and was basically a hero for a week, I myself even sent an in game PM that weekend to show my support.
The assumption all along I feel is that MECHAlobe was just being playful during that time, possibly playing a game of "Catch Me if you Can" with the leaderboard. That all changed this weekend when MECHAlobe went from playful eccentric to an enemy of the people. The line was crossed this weekend, as this weekend was when all the other possible explanations for the (now) 9 Faction event wins in 2020 were removed, as MECHAlobe had a determined challenger, and MECHAlobe sent a very loud message that Faction events belong to him.
I will now show two screenshots from this weekend, taken approximately 3 hours apart to illustrate this fact.
The first was taken with approximately 2 days, 19 hours remaining in the event.
The second was taken around 3 hours later, with approximately 2 days, 16 hours remaining.
Just as Torsten-Islay dared to approach the throne, MECHAlobe scored 1,469,600 points...in 3 hours. MECHAlobe had a minimum of three such sprees in the first phase of this event. Myself and a couple other people tried to reverse engineer what it would take to score 1,469,600 points in 3 hours, and we came up with a couple of models, and from there we calculated an approximate cost for such a spree and I will not post that number because it feels tacky, but suffice to say it is extreme.
To resort to such an extreme spending model to win an event is what it is (apologies @~peregrine~ ) and if somebody wants to do that to win a Faction event for the achievement or just to say they won a Faction event, so be it. But to do it just to prevent anybody else from winning so you can win your 9th Faction event of 2020, what the hell is that?!
Point made. Horse dead. Horse kicked. At this point it has crossed over from amusing to malignant.
I also don't plan to win. But if Empress Penguin is indeed in the same fleet, then @SSR Barkley was being more serious than I realized about asking to win.
Not sure what being in the same fleet has to do with talking to Mech. But yes, I was being absolutely serious. Diplomacy goes a long way. There's some of us, including Rowden, who've been friends for a while and talk to each other to make sure we're not stepping on each other's toes.
The game can be more about the relationships you build and the friendships you form with others.
Maybe the reason Mech wins so many, and continues to do so convincingly is almost nobody else has bothered to come to an arrangement. What you see, instead, is the envy and loathing in the social groups and ugliness in PM's about how he continues to win events.
Comments
- get Arachnia
- reach lv99
- win an event (?)
If Arachnia drops out of a merit pack, ends up in a campaign or I get her in the next honor sale, I will have nothing left to spend dilithium on. I would save it in case a new card that I really want ends up in a Tuesday pack or for a possible win in a faction event.
I mean, I suppose that the player who won the last one won't go for a win in all faction events of the next 2 years.
And I know that it's a lot less expensive to win a Skirmish or Galaxy event, but I hate Galaxy events and I'm not willing to put in the time that a Skirmish win would require. It will have to be a Faction or nothing.
I earned top 50 once, but I expended a phenomenal amount of long-saved resources. I can't imagine the saved resources required for top 5. I wonder how much money people put into it? I figure it would be far cheaper to buy the crew outright.
Congratulations @Bylo Band
or ... you could just talk to the guy? try a pleasant conversation maybe? and do it before the event starts perhaps
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Interesting concept. Asking permission to win an event.
As noted above, you would have to ask. It's been a while since a faction event was won by someone other than the last event winner.
I didn't realize that this was actually an "all events" and not a "lots of events thing"
Then I guess I'll just never clear the last achievement.
As far as I can tell, that's the way it is until someone quits, gets bored, or whatever.
If the company ever does a mid-week mini-event again, then I might have a chance to clear that last achievement. Otherwise, yeah, I’m in the same boat as you.
“It is what it is” disagrees with my OCD.
☮️
I find it very interested that when MECHAlobe burns dilithium in an event, he bought the event. When his opponents do the same they are applauded. Some groups were comparing this event to David vs Goliath when Torsten-Islay was ahead. However, "David" is a multiple event champion and really one of the most dangerous players in the game, who in this specific event got to 4M VP in less than 24 hrs (a new record time to reach 4M VP I believe). However, when MECHAlobe responded, even before reaching 4M VP he was getting messages that he's the worst, childish, he doesn't understand how to play the game, his play style is slap-stick etc etc etc, and that to redeem himself somewhat he should allow Torsten-Islay to win. So that's MECH's experience. Move over to Torsten-Islay (and he's welcome to correct me if I'm wrong, I don't have access to his DM's) but certainly publicly receiving lot of praise and support. And it's like hang on a sec.... they've both used effectively the same principle strategy, Torsten-Islay had invested more, and the feedback they were receiving were poles apart. And please don't take this as 'Rowden's right, we should criticise/send abusive messages to Torsten too.....NO..... you should not be doing it to either of them. Also, these people couldn't be more insulting regarding their opinion of the multiple event winner Torsten-Islay that the only way he could have won is if MECH surrendered part way through the event. And if I put myself in Torsten's shoes I would be appalled if I knew my opponent was receiving calls to surrender the event to prove they're a decent human being. The top players want to play the most successful players at the top of their game, that's how you challenge and improve yourself. Just a quick tangent on this point, when you change MECHAlobe's name to make it more robotic, please consider whether you are doing that to dehumanise him.
The agenda becomes even more clear when you compare the treatment he's received compared with dominant players in other events.
-The top 25 in skirmish-type events is highly similar each event, much more similar than in faction events. The same for the winners. So in other words skirmish events are being dominated by a small group of players. These players do not receive anywhere near the amount of criticism/abuse MECH does, and usually receive a lot of praise. When they do receive it its usually due to confusion regarding if they are macroing and very rarely are players accused of buying the event (I believe has only happened once) or just wasting their time.
-In Expedition events, a single player (myself) has won 4/12 (1/3 as a proportion) of events. No other player has won more than a single expedition type event. This is a far higher proportion than the % faction events MECHAlobe has won. I'm not saying this to boast, but to point out I do not receive anywhere near the amount of comments MECHAlobe does, and I've also currently won more events than him.
-Galaxy events have become a lot cheaper now due to voyages but they used to be far in a way the most expensive event to win (which is why you need to really appreciate the achievements of both free to play Iknamur and Stellar Ice in winning galaxy events in this time frame). Never has any galaxy event winner received the persistent abuse MECH gets. I don't know if this is related in some way to VIPO players winning them on occasion that people have a misunderstanding on how difficult they were to win. The players Iknamur and Stellar Ice were playing against, and beat, no doubt spent $600-$1000+ on that event, and lost. Just let that sink in and recognise the achievements of these two.
Also even a huge difference in spend in the event, and this applies to all of them, does not guarantee beating even someone who sent nothing. Preparation is so important. This is true in faction events, recently [KM] Empress Penguin (who is a mainly a daily card and campaign budget account) won a faction event spending zero dil, and got to the usual VP MECHAlobe gets when he wins. So with all the outrage 'I'm not going to play faction events because it's all pay to win', very recently Express Penguin has proved you can even win the even on a very small budget if you strategise and engage in long-term planning.
I realise those who are sending him abusing DM's etc will do so even more I've brought this up. He's not someone who gets overly upset by it, I'm just very disappointed in the community and thought people maybe would benefit from seeing things from another point of view.
The comment 'It's been a while since a faction event was won by someone other than the last event winner' is incorrect. Runaway Bride was won by Empress Penguin.
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Captain Level 99
Played since January 2017
TP: Do better!!!
Supporting Torsti is wonderful. I'm very supportive of that kind of behaviour. It's just the comparison of how these two players were treated, for doing the same thing, is really telling. And it happens every faction event, I just used this event as an example. The comments to MECH actually start before the event does.
I get why people would support the underdog. Also I think people think MECHAlobe wins more events than he does, KM have won 13 of the last 14 faction events but MECH has *only* won 10, the non-KM in that was eXo SilverRose. If you look at the last 20 faction events MECH has a win percentage of 50%, goes lower the further back you include. These percentages are ridiculously high, but not near 98%.
I also don't plan to win. But if Empress Penguin is indeed in the same fleet, then @SSR Barkley was being more serious than I realized about asking to win.
I'm cool with folks buying the victory like that. It keeps the game running. I don't vilify on that basis. But if there is a gatekeeper for first place, then I think anyone considering a run for first place should be aware of that. It would cost too much (imo) to go for first place and not realistically even have a chance to achieve it. Unless they go in knowing the full situation. If they know and make a run anyway, that's on them. In that case, may the best captain win.
Fwiw, I have never sent a mean message to anyone in first place in any event. I never will. And I will have words with anyone in my fleet if I ever find them doing it. That is certainly not something that I want in the community.
I am a spender, but not crazy. $100 in a month would be in the upper end of average. I don't have that kind of roster depth to really consider it. How to spend my limited resources and maximize my time is part of the fun for me.
I'm a competitive player, just not that level. I don't have the roster of ships or crew yet. Maybe in a year when it develops more. Right now my ENG and MED pool are shallow enough I can't produce 10 of either with over 800 core. I have some nice one coming up, but I have only ONE immortalized gold with ENG primary. I had no immortalized MED golds when the Bones McCoy limited achievements were up. I was on those relentlessly.
I want success, but I want to earn it. You can have anything if you pay enough, but I like DIY. Now, off I go. I should have some shuttles back. :crosses fingers for the right parts:
And aside from general human empathy that says it’s wrong to verbally abuse people in a game regardless of how well or poorly they’re doing, I find it a little hard to feel bad for anyone in those top fleets. “MECHAlobe doesn’t win ‘too much’, because two people that aren’t him or otherwise from our fleet have won a Faction event in the last three months” is kind of a silly claim. Like “nobody complains about people buying their way to victory in Skirmish events”...which is because you can’t buy your way to victory in them anyway - you only have 96 hours in which to gain VP, whereas with a Faction event you have every single hour you work at your job to gain resources to convert to VP during the event.
As Lorca said, I wouldn’t send nastygrams to anyone at the top of the leaderboard, I don’t like it when others do it, and there’s no place for that kind of behavior here. Sadly, the sorts of trolls who will verbally harass others won’t ever really go away unless they get bored of the game or find a more tempting target for their vileness...if you don’t want their attention, maybe take a few events off and let someone else make a run for the top.
We can tell from your event scores
To be clear, I'm not trying to defend it. Harassing people who rank well in events is a crappy thing to do.
+1 on all of this.
I like to set long term goals and follow strategies to get there, but there are a lot of things in this game that are out of reach for me and it's good to know right from the beginning what's achievable and what isn't. This looks like one of the things that I should remove from my list.
Or they get banned/suspended for this unacceptable behavior.
Proud member of Patterns of Force
Captain Level 99
Played since January 2017
TP: Do better!!!
I'll just respond to this post because you've actually used quote marks in this to indicate you've quoted me twice, but then altered what I said to produce a different meaning.
1.
Your quote "nobody complains about people buying their way to victory in Skirmish events”...which is because you can’t buy your way to victory in them anyway
What I actually said "very rarely are players accused of buying the event (I believe has only happened once)" in the context of skirmish events
Explanation: Players can be accused of buying skirmish and skirmish type events. This is because there is a button where you can spend dil to obtain more rewards. Significant to the event type, these rewards include chronitons and victory points. The chronitons reward means there's no requirement to save lots of chronitons for this event type if you are happy enough to spend dil. The victory points have two significant advantages a) allows you to go faster than you usually could (the more rewards you claim the faster) but if click 1-2 times after every battle will allow you to go 5-10% faster. b) Going 5-10% faster means you can play 5-10% less and get the same score, which in the case of a 4 day event can mean 9 hrs more sleep. This difference is equivalent to an extra 2M VP for the players near the top of the leaderboard. Also, skirmish events can also be the second half of hybrid events, including faction-skirmish events. It's very obvious you can reduce how much time/dil you need to spend in phase 2 skirmish by accumulating more points in the faction phase.
2.
Your quote “MECHAlobe doesn’t win ‘too much’, because two people that aren’t him or otherwise from our fleet have won a Faction event in the last three months” is kind of a silly claim.
What I actually said "If you look at the last 20 faction events MECH has a win percentage of 50%, goes lower the further back you include. These percentages are ridiculously high, but not near 98%."
Explanation: What I said was a 50% win ratio which I accepted was ridiculously high. The point of the other 3 (not 2) KM players who won in his current streak is that people attribute those wins to MECHAlobe. And this is how people think he wins every event (98% win rate was what I was replying to), because even if someone else wins, people for some reason attribute to MECHAlobe. And this is very clear from the comments since my first post i.e. the only reason Empress Penguin won is she's in the same fleet. And missing the point that this win demonstrated you don't need to spend any money to rank very highly in a faction with a low spend account if you are strategic. Unless the suggestion is the entire player base allowed her to win because she's in the same fleet as MECHAlobe.
I don't think the implication is the entire player base allowed her to win. But I do think the implication is MECHAlobe allowed her to win. And I don't think every player can go and ask MECHAlobe to be allowed a week to win. So yes Empress Penguin still had to beat the rest of the players, but if MECHAlobe stepped aside to let her win that's not something other players can expect.
I agree with most of your post, so don't take my commentary about this single sentence too negatively, but... this isn't really what faction event winners are doing. In faction events, using cash/dilithium to win doesn't prove much other than who has the biggest wallet. I'm totally cool with him and anyone else doing it this way, but it's not a level playing field for the rest of the crowd that don't have the same disposable income but otherwise do have the crew, the strategies, the time, and the desire to win. Negative DM's are disappointing and unacceptable, but it would be disingenuous to suggest that you can't understand why some players are frustrated that they have seemingly no chance of ever competing for that nagging "Top 1" achievement (or for the glory, or their favorite character, or whatever other reason they may have) via a faction event.
Skirmish win - save some chrons, then don't sleep. No cash needed.
Galaxy win - save more chrons (and/or pre-farm), but sleep slightly more (maybe?). Also no cash needed.
Faction win - save boosts, or don't. Just buy dilithium and instant-complete every shuttle you send. Sleep if you want because you can earn a million vp in a few hours if you have the bankroll. Also helps to have a (presumed) squadmate shadow you near the top of the leaderboard thereby adding lots of shared-crew vp to your total.
Having been around since 2016, I fully understand that faction events were always pay-to-win (despite the occasional no/low spending outliers), and that DB/WRG need income to produce the game. It's all good. But I suspect quite a few different names could be a-top the leaderboard if there were ever to be a no-cash-options faction event. There are plenty of "top" players in the field that just can't match the cash outlay that most winners use.
I am not one of the anti-spending crowd, I am in favor of spending and I support it. I myself am a spender and I have participated in many threads defending the big spenders, here is one such example from several months ago also about spending in Faction events.
When 2020 began and MECHAlobe began his monopoly on Faction events, most people thought it was cool, there was a relatively new face on top for a change. When wins 2 and 3 happened for MECHAlobe most people were like "OK, Dude is flexing to become a household name, OK." Obviously this was starting to make folks nervous but so far there was nothing really to worry about, because the assumption was that after this flexing display was over, things would go back to normal, or some new version of normal.
Then wins 4 through 8 happened, and MECHAlobe kept winning Faction events. Those could be explained away pretty simply by just pointing out that people were now gun shy about taking on MECHAlobe, so he was simply posting a big score on day 1 and coasting, as nobody was really challenging him. No problems there. During that streak the fleet stealing scandal broke and MECHAlobe changed his name to "Don't Tread of Fleets" and was basically a hero for a week, I myself even sent an in game PM that weekend to show my support.
The assumption all along I feel is that MECHAlobe was just being playful during that time, possibly playing a game of "Catch Me if you Can" with the leaderboard. That all changed this weekend when MECHAlobe went from playful eccentric to an enemy of the people. The line was crossed this weekend, as this weekend was when all the other possible explanations for the (now) 9 Faction event wins in 2020 were removed, as MECHAlobe had a determined challenger, and MECHAlobe sent a very loud message that Faction events belong to him.
I will now show two screenshots from this weekend, taken approximately 3 hours apart to illustrate this fact.
The first was taken with approximately 2 days, 19 hours remaining in the event.
The second was taken around 3 hours later, with approximately 2 days, 16 hours remaining.
Just as Torsten-Islay dared to approach the throne, MECHAlobe scored 1,469,600 points...in 3 hours. MECHAlobe had a minimum of three such sprees in the first phase of this event. Myself and a couple other people tried to reverse engineer what it would take to score 1,469,600 points in 3 hours, and we came up with a couple of models, and from there we calculated an approximate cost for such a spree and I will not post that number because it feels tacky, but suffice to say it is extreme.
To resort to such an extreme spending model to win an event is what it is (apologies @~peregrine~ ) and if somebody wants to do that to win a Faction event for the achievement or just to say they won a Faction event, so be it. But to do it just to prevent anybody else from winning so you can win your 9th Faction event of 2020, what the hell is that?!
Point made. Horse dead. Horse kicked. At this point it has crossed over from amusing to malignant.
Not sure what being in the same fleet has to do with talking to Mech. But yes, I was being absolutely serious. Diplomacy goes a long way. There's some of us, including Rowden, who've been friends for a while and talk to each other to make sure we're not stepping on each other's toes.
The game can be more about the relationships you build and the friendships you form with others.
Maybe the reason Mech wins so many, and continues to do so convincingly is almost nobody else has bothered to come to an arrangement. What you see, instead, is the envy and loathing in the social groups and ugliness in PM's about how he continues to win events.
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