Marvel Strike Force: Clusters of Clusters

Welcome back to MSF Mondays! Each week we break down one more aspect of the hottest mobile game, Marvel Strike Force!

This week I would like to discuss the idea of Alliance clusters, and why these are great for a variety of reasons! As you know, so much of your advancement in this game depends on participating actively in an alliance. I have written in the past the importance and benefit of finding a good alliance. I personally love the camaraderie of being in an alliance and having WARs each week in which we come together to strategize and carry out a plan of attack. I have also mentioned that Nerds on Earth’s recent merger made the game even more fun for me because of our newly formed alliance!

However, I saw a question posed on the MSF FB page that struck a chord as something we are keenly aware of in our own Alliance. The writer asked, “Hey everyone, quick question. I jumped into an alliance that is too high level for me. While the rewards from Raid and War seem great, I barely contribute and also am finding a lack of green and blue gear pieces to level up my toons. Should I look for a lower level alliance who is active?”

The answers poured in, “STAY, the rewards will help you in the endgame!” This is also common advice from most content creators.

However, we have become aware of this issue in our newly merged Alliance and we actually run U3 raids, in addition to our normal U6.5 and 7 for our emerging folks as we have a very mixed-level Alliance. The more and more I thought about the advice given on Facebook, the more I wonder if the advice overall is wrong, but also right enough that there is a better way to advise new players and a better way to alliance.

Marvel Strike Force: What is an Alliance Cluster?

Which brings us to the rapidly group movement to alliance clusters in MSF and how this can boost your personal development while also maintaining your in game enjoyment by keeping up with your friends!

An Alliance cluster is a group of INDEPENDENT alliances that share a single communication server for recruitment benefits and also have some form of expectation that members can “promote up” to a more challenging Alliance within that cluster or also slide down should the member wish to be a little more casual for a season. Clusters often have agreed-upon rules on member behavior and other such details.

Typically, each alliance retains its autonomy in a cluster. Alliances set their own progression goals and manage decisions regarding their members, meaning they are able to move members to find the best fit for each individual as well as the alliances.

So, independant Alliances, yet working together.

MSF: To cluster or not to cluster?

Our Nerds on the Patio alliance is not hardcore but we are active and all about growing together and individually through this game. Currently we have 18 level 75+ players and have 2 players weigh-in at level 63. We also have a level 50 player, and friend of a current captain who wants in when we have room and who is trying to progress through the game quickly.

And we certainly do not mind bringing in emerging players (we don’t like the “low level” language) because typically they are replacing someone who is less active on a daily basis and the raids keys help everyone grow.

While at times the folks who are emerging feel like our FB post writer – I know I did early on when I was the player trying to catch up – we have all built relationships the transcend the game and like playing together as part of our Alliance. We have a Discord where we interact and strategize and it makes the game more enjoyable. Though, I am starting to really like the idea of alliance clusters because I think you still get all of the camaraderie of being in an alliance with the appropriate levels for the players.

While it takes a bit more effort on the part of the leaders and captains, if you have the opportunity to start a cluster, now is the time. As many players have been displaced due to people exiting the game (while data is hard to find on the actual numbers of people “leaving” or taking a break, the recruitment pages seem to be more full now than ever because of Alliances disbanding).

We have been hesitant to pull the trigger on starting a cluster for the fact that we don’t really want people to feel we are getting too serious by having levels of our alliance. However I saw another post which made me think this can work for players of all levels.

The player posted, “Hey all, looking to take a step back in my seriousness of the game and am looking for gold 4, Ultimus 7 or high 6, and Greek 3. I will get my attacks in and be active, just can’t do the high level grind anymore.” In our own alliance we know that life outside of the game gets busy and sometimes people need to scale back, but also feel a sense of duty to the Alliance to grind away.

If we had 2 Alliances a player could option themselves down if they wanted to take a more chill approach to the game while still providing some punch for an emerging Alliance. On top of that, they wouldn’t have to skip out on people they like interacting with for the wild card of a whole new alliance. We may or may not start a cluster, but feel free to hope in our Discord if you are looking for people to talk shop with and maybe if we get enough people interested we can take a shot at expanding our patio of nerds!

Well I hope this helps you take your Squad from a D+ to a B- Commander!

Game Radar

Blitz: Monday’s blitz starts with Nebula. You can already hear the laugh starting for Thursday’s Mr. Sinister Blitz. This is going to be a big one since he’s a meta-toon and because the next event requires additional Blitz participation.

Current Events: Falcon and Winter Soldier event is coming, I will try to get a separate post about that event and how to approach it soon!

Upcoming Legendary: Magneto starts today and the blog post mentions Phoenix returning soon. Mags requires brotherhood or X-Men and Phoenix has the weird mixture of Villain, Mystic, Controllers. More importantly Phoenix should be the start of the Legendary cycle which means Jubliee should be back soon. Farm those Pym Tech toons and be ready to unlock the key to Astonishing X–Men!

Marvel Strike Force Legendary calendar — Marvel Strike Force Legendary Calendar by Twitch.tv/AMVX

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