Aren't alerts a bit too long ?

I have the feeling that the first hour is useless.

Whatever faction gets ahead in the beginning will get bored because they don't have much to conquer anymore.
At the same time, the (almost) warpgated faction is going to mount a zerg and roll endlessly.

So why not make alerts shorter but meaningful from start to finish ?

No my friend the time is just right we need thoes 2 hours to actually make tactical choices matter. It only seems wrong when an aller is ignored

Eh... Sorry I don't see the relation here.
Would tactical choices matter even more if alerts were 3 hours long ?

I laughed at TACTICAL CHOICES. Last 999 alerts i saw had ZERG tactics. Wins one who brings more meat (usually VS).
Also TACTICS is ALWAYS to have 6-8 fights with TR and 1-2 VS-NC. So yeah. TACTICS.

I think alert duration is fine ... I just wish they happened more on the continent I was on ... Honestly it seems the alert system just thinks " Which continent has the least amount of people on and would force the most to move if we picked it " and decides on that one ..

Then you do pretty much have a useless / slow 1st hour as people in other fights on the busy continent are averse to moving.

If the Alert is too short, the map doesn't offer the possibility to change very much.

I'm fine with the two hour alerts, although I also liked it when we had one hour alerts too. My main problem is that I don't always have two hours to put into the game...

No no no. 2hrs is spot on. Just the right length. It gives time to start from nothing and eventually win. It gives time for last ditch defences, epic half hour contests over particular bits of land etc etc.

An hour is waaaay too short. As we saw from the thankfully discontinued 1hr alerts, 1hr gives you barely enough time to gather at the WG, load up gals and enage in 1-2 battles and then the alert ends. Hardly any point. 2hrs is the perfect length.

The time is needed. Alerts are fine as they are.

Are you new to the game?

Evidence shows that more often than not the faction which is ahead too early on in the alert loses. The other two factions just focus on the leader and the leader is unable to counter two forces at once and hence loses the alert.

Attacking the Tech plant on Esamir is a similar failing. If you attack it early on or in the first hour or so, it just draws the attention of the other two factions who immediately combine to attack the tech plant owner.

It really depends how competitive each faction is at the time, although it is widely understood the faction to gain the most ground first, tends to lose later, in part due to the other two factions trucing to deny the win to the initially superior force. I'm not sure if that is statistically true, but it frequently feels that way.

The base perks would go a lot further to allowing a sustained holding of hexes if they were more notable, at the very least in impoving the effectiveness of turrets which are largely useless at the moment. Or alternatively if there were more significant bottlenecks.

I also miss those one hour alerts that would pop for things like biolab, amp station, or tech plant domination. Those alerts gave us actual objectives, and the one hour timer was really useful. Why, you ask?

Because it got people to MOVE faster. The battles felt like they meant something, rather than being an endless grind. You had an objective you could see, and people used the map more often. It caused zergs to evaporate more often, because people would not need overwhelming pop just to hold or take something when they could spread out.

I'm guessing you mean redeploy mobs on demand when you say "tactics"

I wonder if having Alerts on 2 Continents at once would work.
Also I would like to see Alerts more often.
Maybe even mixing it up.

We use to have Tech/bio/amp Alerts also.

Something new would be better.
Transcontinental alerts?
'Hossin Continent Alert + Hold Eisa Tech Plant on Esamir.

I think if they do something a bit more interesting with the Alerts we could put a little life into the game that may seem lacking to some.

This idea, I like.

I wouldn't mind variable time frame alerts. Ranging between 1 - 2 hours.

Or a multi-continent alert for control of a specific type of major facility: Bio-lab, tech plant, Amp station. (with a 2 hour deadline)

Considering it takes an hour to get on the content with the alert if you don't have a membership...

Only if you play during "prime time" for that server. Otherwise, there's pretty much always room on the continent for people to move over.