With reference to this section of the campaign page, what does "Encourage Alliance Activity" mean?

The only two listings in the table describe a "returning player". That's not encouraging alliance activity. That's just bothering someone to log in again. Alliance activity makes it sound like small active alliances can still qualify by earning a set amount of AP. If this is true can it please be updated on the table?

I really hope this campaign isn't just limited to the alliances of players who put the game down within a month of PC release and can be contacted. That would be seriously and needlessly unfair on many of us where we happened not to be in such an alliance.

On another note, is there even any way to know the last time an alliance member logged in so players who don't even qualify won't be unnecessarily spammed by their alliance?

So I just went through the entire list of people in my alliance to try and find out when they had last played.

Being that the alliance itself was founded in June, the outlook was never good. From what I can see, there are just two realistic prospects for players who've put the game down, and three or four others whose Gamertags are private so we can't really know (I don't think PSO2 itself tells you the last time an alliance member was online).

I shared a quick sample of that research with the PSO2 discord - with names and anything identifiable censored - and was called a stalker. Just for illustrative purposes here's an even more redacted version with a few summaries:

I get the intention behind this campaign, but to include what is probably an exclusive emote is really screwing people for having small, tight-knit, active or simply new alliances.

Unless "alliance activity" provides an alternative means to qualify. Which it really should.

"**If the returning player belongs to Alliances on multiple Ships, all members of each Alliance will receive the reward. However, the reward can only be received once by both the affected Alliance members and the player.

***All members of the Alliance that the returning player belongs to will receive the reward."

@Snow said in "or Encourage Alliance Activity!":

"**If the returning player belongs to Alliances on multiple Ships, all members of each Alliance will receive the reward. However, the reward can only be received once by both the affected Alliance members and the player.

***All members of the Alliance that the returning player belongs to will receive the reward."

I know. The topic refers to that. Both of those smallprint notes require alliances to have at least one returning player, do they not? That is a problem.

what i really wonder is, do those returning players need to be part of that alliance or is it possible for a returning player to join an alliance for the effect to still count.if it's that i'll hop on my 2nd account and invite myself.

@ShAdOnIc Yeah most alliances if they are active prune inactive members. The ones that don't are usually dead or small and have a tight-knit communication channels with their old members. People with second accounts that never log in will have the biggest advantage here. Encourage alliance activity should be more along the lines of, completing UQs or something together as a qualifier.

@ShAdOnIc said in "or Encourage Alliance Activity!":

what i really wonder is, do those returning players need to be part of that alliance or is it possible for a returning player to join an alliance for the effect to still count.

Yeah, this part makes it really unclear. The last alliance campaign required you to be in a qualifying alliance the moment the campaign ended, so you couldn't just join and leave during the campaign.

If it's anything like that, it's sensible to expect players' accounts will be labelled as returning if they logged in after 24 July when their previous login on record was 23 June. Beyond that, alliances will probably be given a one-time check at the end of the campaign to see if they contain any returning accounts all players in the alliance during that maintenance will qualify.

This would mean returning players couldn't temporarily join a lot of alliances to help them all get this emote.

@Eri-Natori said in "or Encourage Alliance Activity!":

People with second accounts that never log in will have the biggest advantage here. Encourage alliance activity should be more along the lines of, completing UQs or something together as a qualifier.

Yeah, it just doesn't make sense to call this "alliance activity". How much activity is someone who's put the game down for a month really going to encourage? Especially on PC where qualifying as returning means they put the game down within a month of its release, so either they aren't interested in the game or they're waiting for the PC issues to be fixed - which means they won't be active, as those issues haven't been fixed.

So this update just distributed 130: Operating Terminal to those whose alliances qualified.

Turns out despite recruiting a couple returning players almost a week after the campaign began, mine did not. The emote is now on the player shop for millions.

This campaign was hot garbage and as a feedback item it must never be repeated. This format basically punishes people for playing the game and if you ever do it a second time it will seriously encourage people to make TOS-breaking second accounts to sit inactive in their alliances to avoid being screwed over by something that called itself a celebration.

Funny thing, I was just complaining about this. During this event I was in an alliance and we had some people return to the game for the emote, some stayed. I changed alliances since then, and today I see the former alliance using that emote while I'm sitting here looking pretty without the emote but having participated in it. Aparently, you had to stick to the same alliance for several months for a one week event pay to be awarded to you, thanks microsoft.

Weird thing is, I think I recruited someone with the flower icon (Returning Player) just 2 days before the event ended, and I got it o_O

@Aishtha said in "or Encourage Alliance Activity!":

Aparently, you had to stick to the same alliance for several months for a one week event pay to be awarded to you, thanks microsoft.

My understanding is you and the returning player had to be in the same alliance during the maintenance ending the campaign period. It just had a long wait time between then and distribution because some campaign do for some weird reason.

@Frost-Soar said in "or Encourage Alliance Activity!":

Weird thing is, I think I recruited someone with the flower icon (Returning Player) just 2 days before the event ended, and I got it o_O

Yeah I recruited a couple the same way. Ultimately the announcement was too vague. It may have needed to be a player who was in the alliance before they were inactive. Or if it wasn't, I guess the ones I recruited all happened to return just before the campaign began so they still had the icon but didn't qualify.

If that's the case we were screwed from the start of the campaign because everyone in my alliance had logged in during the period the campaign wanted us not to. It would also suggest you got it because of a different player in your alliance returning than the one you recruited.

TLDR this campaign was stupid and unfair and needs to not happen again because punishing people for being active is ridiculous.

I posted on another thread with the same topic, from the wording on the JP site (JP had same campaign), it seems like it takes the snapshot on Aug 19, as the maintenance starts.

So you must have a returnee in your alliance when maint starts on Aug 19.

If the returnee loses returnee before 19th or if you or them leave the alliance, you don't qualify

Japanese to English got lost in translation :C

@HarmlessSyan said in "or Encourage Alliance Activity!":

I posted on another thread with the same topic, from the wording on the JP site (JP had same campaign), it seems like it takes the snapshot on Aug 19, as the maintenance starts.

I remembered that and looked for the topic. It could be our campaigns operated slightly differently for backend reasons, similar to how JP's SG scratch choice ticket needs you to trade 40 SG scratch items whereas ours is given by scratching 40 times and we can keep the items.

Or it could be they match. But how long do players have the flower for when they return anyway? Because I recruited a couple guys with the flower 6 and 7 days after the campaign began and they're still in the alliance now so the only way we had the same system was if both of them returned before the preceding maintenance and were disqualified.

And to be blunt even if that was the case, the fact we have no ways to know whether or not our alliance contained any qualifying players is still a problem and awful design.

Returnee status is for 30 days, and you get it for not logging in for 30 days iirc

I was able to log in with an old account that I used to farm extra alliance points with and get the reward for my alliance on JP. But with the PS Vita no longer supported, I can't 2 box anymore

It is against TOS for having multiple accounts? I thought it was just that you can't share your account with other people.