All of what you are saying will just fall on deaf ears, for me my X-23 will now be useless in AW due to bleed immune, also stating that “ if players are lucky enough to get the champs then they will have an advantage over those that dont” how is that even fair. I think you have shot your self in the foot this time Kabam, what once use to be a great game is now becoming a not so great game.
All of what you are saying will just fall on deaf ears, for me my X-23 will now be useless in AW due to bleed immune, also stating that “ if players are lucky enough to get the champs then they will have an advantage over those that dont” how is that even fair. I think you have shot your self in the foot this time Kabam, what once use to be a great game is now becoming a not so great game.
X-23 is probably one of the few winners in the global buff shuffle. Although she loses bleed she gains (I presume) her bleed immunity cruelty stacks which is probably a close to neutral swap, and in the meantime she gets the female champion heightened class advantage bonus on attack.
This reflexive who's good who's bad snap judgments are part of what I suspect the dynamic intent is intended to stamp out.
seems small when talking about only 1500-2000 alliances will get the changes, but thats actually upto 60,000 rosters affected.
The question is not how many players are affected in this context, but rather are those players in a position to react to the global buffs. For many lower tier players those buffs would be both significant and not easy to work around. But whether it is 60,00 or 600,000 players, if they are all strong players with large rosters the net impact on them will likely be far lower than the worst case scenarios being discussed in the thread.
I'm inclined to agree. If the Top 5% has maintained their position without developing significant enough Rosters to deal with a Bleed Immune Node, that would outline a much larger flaw with the design. I'm with you. People will no doubt be able to adjust, overall. If they're of limited Rosters and Resources, I'm curious what they are doing in the Top 5%.
If Kabam wanted to keep AW fresh and Dynamic and kill us more there are much better solutions...
How about the alliance can assign a set amount of nodes (6 per BG) specific to the Defender. Same ones used in Act.
Give people a reason to place:
Moon knight - Lunatic, Daredevil - Radar, Like Cage - Reborn.
Let the alliance pick where the node goes.
Without changing the entrie framework of AW you increase strategy. Keep it fresh changing it monthly and add Diversity to Defense without placing a sack of potatoes.
A Global Node and bleed immune just make most of the repeat defenders better
If you’ve at go the Bleed Immune route Then you should refund my Deep Wounds same as MD..
Based on today’s offer you took away over $100 worth of resources when on a Sale!! Or over $200 every other day if the year
Besides the fact that it's not what they're for, what happens next rotation? More Tickets? That's a slippery slope.
Who are you to say what they are for? There used to be one reason for them, but Kabam changed the RDT game when they gave them away as a gift in December with no changes being made to a champ.
There is no longer an exact reasoning behind RDT's
I was temporarily retired and missed that give away
All of what you are saying will just fall on deaf ears, for me my X-23 will now be useless in AW due to bleed immune, also stating that “ if players are lucky enough to get the champs then they will have an advantage over those that dont” how is that even fair. I think you have shot your self in the foot this time Kabam, what once use to be a great game is now becoming a not so great game.
X-23 is probably one of the few winners in the global buff shuffle. Although she loses bleed she gains (I presume) her bleed immunity cruelty stacks which is probably a close to neutral swap, and in the meantime she gets the female champion heightened class advantage bonus on attack.
This reflexive who's good who's bad snap judgments are part of what I suspect the dynamic intent is intended to stamp out.
Someone earlier was complaining that alternative debuffers like X-23 and Elektra only work on naturally immune champs. So no cruelty or armor breaks.
I agree with the idea that information would help change who people bring. I am in what used to be a Plat 1 alliance until the end of the season (now a home for the semi-retired due to burnout) and the information gathering to decide paths after the intro of seasons and the accompanying roster boom promoted a transition from Blade, GR and Iceman to 3 from Hyperion, Blade, Medusa, Corvus, Iceman, Rulk, etc. depending on the scouting, classes visible, and common strategic placements. Luckily we had a ton of 4-55s and at least 2 5-65s each to make that happen.
If Kabam wanted to keep AW fresh and Dynamic and kill us more there are much better solutions...
What they are doing now isn't a solution. Kabam themselves state that their goal is to allow the players to have more control over how they use global buff-like mechanics in conjunction with their defense placement, but this was just a first early step to validating the idea and to slowly introduce the concept to the players.
Ref: "We’ll start off a little slow with Season 5. Although our intention is to allow Summoners to choose a buff that synergises well with their Defense rosters."
What Kabam has done with Red Hulk, Luke Cage, Venom and Carnage is nothing short of awesome. People are ranking and using those champs now, when previously they were just the butt of many MCOC jokes. Great job Kabam you've figured out to encourage diversity! That formula works. This "Developer's Thoughts" one just discourages most players including myself.
When you buff old champs I want to grind and pay for more rank up materials so I can rank up more champs. When you nerf, I think why bother, they'll just nerf the good ones anyway making my efforts and money spent a waste.
Why the sudden 180 here? You were going in the right direction, then out of nowhere this.
People keep calling it a nerf, but that's not at all what it is. It's a rotating Node. Nothing is changing about the Champs themselves. As for buffs, they've done a few and no doubt there's room for more. However, I think the list that people consider useless/less effective is much higher than can reasonably be reworked. There's a tendency to discard anything not God Tier. Buffs have to be calculated and done carefully, and within balance of other progress. It's not a matter of just sweeping all the old Champs.
People keep calling it a nerf, but that's not at all what it is. It's a rotating Node. Nothing is changing about the Champs themselves. As for buffs, they've done a few and no doubt there's room for more. However, I think the list that people consider useless/less effective is much higher than can reasonably be reworked. There's a tendency to discard anything not God Tier. Buffs have to be calculated and done carefully, and within balance of other progress. It's not a matter of just sweeping all the old Champs.
The tendency to discard anything not God Tier is a natural consequence of too few resources. If Kabam wants diversity, people will need more ranking materials otherwise they’ll still bring their same old proven guys that they’ve ranked to usability and fight at a slight disadvantage because that’s all they have.
Everyone everywhere hates forced changes that make their situation worse. That's a terrible way to promote change. Offer incentives and the ability to dust off old champs a rank them and people will. Some of the old champs could be tightened up pretty quickly. It's not brain surgery or anything. Look at the successful champs and figure out what makes them successful. There's a few things that they know people find desirable in a champ and things that people hate. They could figure it out for a few champs without a tedious, overly long beta period.
What Kabam has done with Red Hulk, Luke Cage, Venom and Carnage is nothing short of awesome. People are ranking and using those champs now, when previously they were just the butt of many MCOC jokes. Great job Kabam you've figured out to encourage diversity! That formula works. This "Developer's Thoughts" one just discourages most players including myself.
When you buff old champs I want to grind and pay for more rank up materials so I can rank up more champs. When you nerf, I think why bother, they'll just nerf the good ones anyway making my efforts and money spent a waste.
Why the sudden 180 here? You were going in the right direction, then out of nowhere this.
They explain their position in the announcement. Although introducing new champs (and revisiting old ones) can change the strategic balance of the game, it does so extremely slowly, and not consistently either. They are attempting to change the way alliance war plays out strategically, so players perceive more strategic avenues.
Part of the problem is that buffing old champions or introducing new champions tends to only displace previous options by superceding them, they don't add new options as often. It doesn't add counterplay if the best AW attacker gets replaced with a different best AW attacker. That's not the change that the developers are interested in. What they want is more of a rock/paper/scissors gameplay where there game encourages players to place defenses that are better against the most common attackers than just placing the strongest defense period, and force attackers to then respond to that by reconsidering who they bring on offense to respond to the actions of the players.
Introducing new champions and buffing old ones does encourage players to either hunt for them or rank them up if they had them on the bench. But that's not the problem specified as the problem they are trying to attack with their Dev Diary. It isn't a 180 turn from their point of view.
This thread keeps getting moved off the main page. This is very important for everyone to read. They are negatively changing the most important part of the game.
The tendency to discard anything not God Tier is a natural consequence of too few resources. If Kabam wants diversity, people will need more ranking materials otherwise they’ll still bring their same old proven guys that they’ve ranked to usability and fight at a slight disadvantage because that’s all they have.
Perfectly explained.
Also buffing the (many) bad champs will help in the long term to diversify aq/aw/quest teams naturally.
I really hope Kabam drops this terrible idea and takes inspiration from the MANY ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS proposed in this forum. A lot of positive feedback and valuable ideas here.
People keep calling it a nerf, but that's not at all what it is. It's a rotating Node. Nothing is changing about the Champs themselves. As for buffs, they've done a few and no doubt there's room for more. However, I think the list that people consider useless/less effective is much higher than can reasonably be reworked. There's a tendency to discard anything not God Tier. Buffs have to be calculated and done carefully, and within balance of other progress. It's not a matter of just sweeping all the old Champs.
When the game only allows you to max out 3-5 total champs after playing for 3+ years then the players HAVE to discard non god tier champs. It's a self inflicted problem, that they have total control over.
Kabam, and many of their blind supporters on this forum, don't seem to understand that in a game like this any change, even a small one, has a huge impact on everyone. Of course people who are in tiers that won't change can speculate on how those changes will impact players, but they won't actually know.
What Kabam has done with Red Hulk, Luke Cage, Venom and Carnage is nothing short of awesome. People are ranking and using those champs now, when previously they were just the butt of many MCOC jokes. Great job Kabam you've figured out to encourage diversity! That formula works. This "Developer's Thoughts" one just discourages most players including myself.
When you buff old champs I want to grind and pay for more rank up materials so I can rank up more champs. When you nerf, I think why bother, they'll just nerf the good ones anyway making my efforts and money spent a waste.
Why the sudden 180 here? You were going in the right direction, then out of nowhere this.
They explain their position in the announcement. Although introducing new champs (and revisiting old ones) can change the strategic balance of the game, it does so extremely slowly, and not consistently either. They are attempting to change the way alliance war plays out strategically, so players perceive more strategic avenues.
Part of the problem is that buffing old champions or introducing new champions tends to only displace previous options by superceding them, they don't add new options as often. It doesn't add counterplay if the best AW attacker gets replaced with a different best AW attacker. That's not the change that the developers are interested in. What they want is more of a rock/paper/scissors gameplay where there game encourages players to place defenses that are better against the most common attackers than just placing the strongest defense period, and force attackers to then respond to that by reconsidering who they bring on offense to respond to the actions of the players.
Introducing new champions and buffing old ones does encourage players to either hunt for them or rank them up if they had them on the bench. But that's not the problem specified as the problem they are trying to attack with their Dev Diary. It isn't a 180 turn from their point of view.
That is simply not possible in this game. With 3-5 maximum r5 chams and 85% of all champs being garbage on defense or offense, no one can or will actually adjust their teams to anything.
It actually scares me how little the dev team seems to understand about how the game works.
I don't understand why people are actually defending these changes... In reality I don't think they will have a huge effect on the difficulty of war, however, they most certainly will not accomplish the goals that Kabam has mentioned to us. In fact, it will have the opposite effect. These changes will limit even further the effectiveness of our rosters for this season of war.
Most players have at least 3-5 good champs for AW attack, and most likely at least 1 of those will have a heavy reliance on bleed. Take that ability away, and they are now left with only 4 viable attackers. This isn't some magical solution that forces us to diversify our attack team, it forces us to even further limit who we bring to the attack phase.
I previously had 4 champs that I rotated between using on AW attack, one of those was AA. With these changes, I have no choice but to sit AA on the bench which now leaves me with an attack team that will never change. Exactly the thing Kabam said they didn't want to do.
Mates @Werewrym@RagamugginGunner the proposed changes are untenable indeed.
Let's keep the discussion constructive and post new ideas, no need to argue with people defending the main post ;-)
For example, another option could be to provide, before the start of the AW season, some rank up/down material to let everybody adjust to the changing nodes.
Let's say 3 items to rank up a 5* and 3 items to rank down a 5*
5 items to rank up a 4* and 5 items to rank down a 4*
I am sure that you will stick with your plan of implementing global nodes in AW, so I'll have to adapt. However, the lack of rank up materials will make it very hard to adjust my rotation of AW attackers and defenders, which is something you have stated as a goal: More diversity.
"Having the right Champion, and being lucky in Crystal pulls, is much more important than we would like it to be."
It isn't just having the right champ though, it's also being able to get them to a suitable level in order to compete in high tier wars. For reference, I have finished in P3 the last two seasons, fighting in tier 3 all of last season. I have never been below tier 4 since Seasons started.
If you are going go forward with these global nodes AND will continue keeping the rate a player can acquire T2A and T5B at it's current level AND if you would like to see more diversity in AW, I would like to suggest the following to you for your consideration.
1. Increase the attack timer from three minutes to five or six minutes.
Three minutes is just not enough time in most cases for a r3 5* to be useful when every death counts. This would make an r3 5* champ much more viable as an attack option in the hands of a skilled player that takes very few hits over the course of a war.
It would also increase the number of champs to consider bringing to r4 for attack by adding high utility/lower damage output champs to the discussion. Rogue, Dorm, GR, Beast come to mind here. In addition to increasing the timers you could also
2. Remove the challenger rating in AW.
Again, this would give players more incentive to bring r3 5*/r5 4* champs in on AW attack, allowing skillful players to utilize more of their rosters. It may also allow players to consider taking strictly defensive oriented 5* champs to r4 more often as they would likely have more attack options to choose from in their pool of r3 5*/r5 4* champs.
3. Make all champs visible on the map.
This would be a controversial change, but it would also force us to carefully consider placements knowing our opponents can prepare for their paths in advance. And by implementing this along with #1 and #2 above, it would almost certainly encourage alliances to really plan out player's paths, thereby shaking up the monotony of players typically having one assigned path because they have the champs in their roster to allow for the most success based on the most likely defenders one would see on certain nodes coupled with the nodes themselves. Have an r4/r5 Void? Welcome to path 6/7...every time.
As an example, if AW season 5 is rolled out with the Amped Up and Bleed Immune global nodes and the above changes were also made, my r3 Rogue, Angela, Proxima, or Psylocke could come off of my bench. Those players with an r3 Void may be able to take path 6/7, allowing the player with the r4 Void to possibly take a different path using different champs. This would make things more "dynamic" from war to war as players would more than likely be taking different paths with different champs based on visible matchups.
I think changes like this could actually make AW fun again. I welcome any input from my fellow players on the above.
People keep calling it a nerf, but that's not at all what it is. It's a rotating Node. Nothing is changing about the Champs themselves. As for buffs, they've done a few and no doubt there's room for more. However, I think the list that people consider useless/less effective is much higher than can reasonably be reworked. There's a tendency to discard anything not God Tier. Buffs have to be calculated and done carefully, and within balance of other progress. It's not a matter of just sweeping all the old Champs.
When the game only allows you to max out 3-5 total champs after playing for 3+ years then the players HAVE to discard non god tier champs. It's a self inflicted problem, that they have total control over.
Kabam, and many of their blind supporters on this forum, don't seem to understand that in a game like this any change, even a small one, has a huge impact on everyone. Of course people who are in tiers that won't change can speculate on how those changes will impact players, but they won't actually know.
Yes, the impact is you can't rely in Bleed for a Season. Given your example, if all 3-5 rely on Bleed, that's more of a tactical issue than Resources. Personally, I wouldn't put all my eggs in one basket, but that's how I Rank.
In any case, there are many other options besides Bleed. No doubt 6*s have been acquired as well. I doubt they're all Bleed. Nor do you need to use a Max Champ. Point is, there are choices.
The whole reaction is as if this is some type of permanent change. It's the first rotation. It's going to swap out. That's what I'm saying. The response is as if they've irreparably damaged Champs. It's a Node. One that won't stay indefinitely, and doesn't change the Champs at all. Still just as useful.
For the record, there are quite a few other Debuffs. I don't care what Tier I'm in. I wouldn't rely on one alone. There's Incinerate, Shock, Armor Break, Degen, etc. That brings me back to my original point. People will survive. They'll just have to do something different. That's the real argument in my opinion. The same tactic can't be used indefinitely if the game mode wants to be challenging.
People keep calling it a nerf, but that's not at all what it is. It's a rotating Node. Nothing is changing about the Champs themselves. As for buffs, they've done a few and no doubt there's room for more. However, I think the list that people consider useless/less effective is much higher than can reasonably be reworked. There's a tendency to discard anything not God Tier. Buffs have to be calculated and done carefully, and within balance of other progress. It's not a matter of just sweeping all the old Champs.
When the game only allows you to max out 3-5 total champs after playing for 3+ years then the players HAVE to discard non god tier champs. It's a self inflicted problem, that they have total control over.
Kabam, and many of their blind supporters on this forum, don't seem to understand that in a game like this any change, even a small one, has a huge impact on everyone. Of course people who are in tiers that won't change can speculate on how those changes will impact players, but they won't actually know.
Yes, the impact is you can't rely in Bleed for a Season. Given your example, if all 3-5 rely on Bleed, that's more of a tactical issue than Resources. Personally, I wouldn't put all my eggs in one basket, but that's how I Rank.
In any case, there are many other options besides Bleed. No doubt 6*s have been acquired as well. I doubt they're all Bleed. Nor do you need to use a Max Champ. Point is, there are choices.
The whole reaction is as if this is some type of permanent change. It's the first rotation. It's going to swap out. That's what I'm saying. The response is as if they've irreparably damaged Champs. It's a Node. One that won't stay indefinitely, and doesn't change the Champs at all. Still just as useful.
For the record, there are quite a few other Debuffs. I don't care what Tier I'm in. I wouldn't rely on one alone. There's Incinerate, Shock, Armor Break, Degen, etc. That brings me back to my original point. People will survive. They'll just have to do something different. That's the real argument in my opinion. The same tactic can't be used indefinitely if the game mode wants to be challenging.
Gonna post one of the ideas I threw at kabam bc I liked it lol. And we're allowed to share our feedback.
Counterplay is one pillar and I really like that focus, tho I question how well global nodes achieve that. The following idea kinda takes the notion of counterplay and smushes it together w their node idea.
Placement day- each alliance selects one single buff or debuff from a pool (options chosen by kabam, can be changed daily/weekly/per season)
If a buff is selected, it would be applied to that team's defenders. If debuff, it is applied to the enemy attackers. Normal defender placements happens during this time as well.
Attack day- each alliance is shown the buff/debuff selected by the enemy. They are allowed to select one more buff/debuff from the pool. In this case, if a buff is selected.. It would be applied to their attackers while a debuff would be applied to enemy defenders. Then each team can scout paths and choose attackers as normal.
With this, you still have a traditional war... But you also have direct counterplay both in buff/debuff selections and in attacker choice. You also have higher strategies of matching your defenders to your selected phase 1 buff/debuff. It seemed like a fun twist to me.
Admittedly, I haven't played it out far beyond the nugget of the idea as far as which buffs/debuffs should go into the pool and how they would interact/cancel each other out, etc. Seems doable without too many issues tho.
What about the issue with cheating alliances getting dropped to lower tiers and roflstomping alliances they have no business playing?
So this is something we haven't really commented on yet, but I can say that we are aware of how this affects other Alliances, and is something we are looking at solutions to. We're not 100% sure on exactly what we're going to do at this time, but are looking to have something in place for Season 5.
@Kabam Miike I know that the Team is currently working on how to approach this issue, and I'm sure there's tons of suggested ideas out there in order to address how to best punish an alliance caught "piloting" in order to achieve their wins. I just wanted to list some ideas I've heard out there, in hopes that this may allow the best way to address the problem to be implemented:
I think the pillar idea is to NOT drop the alliance's war rating, but still dock their total seasons points. This tremendously hurts any alliance that Top Alliances match up with. I've seen a lot of "potentially Platinum 3" alliances end up facing someone who was punished and dropped down to their war rating, only to get demolished cause they're facing more Rank 4, Level 55, 5 Star champions against people with more expansive rosters, which then ultimately affect the alliances in the lower tiers and further affecting the final season placements.
- Someone suggested locking them out from matchmaking entirely for the remainder of the season, and wherever their deducted season points lands them, that's what they end up receiving. - I think this is somewhat useful, however this may result in a lot of alliances disbanding and going to a "shell" alliance or another "sister" alliance in order to preserve their season rewards depending on how many wars are left in the season.
- Someone suggested allowing them to remain at their war rating (and respective Alliance War Tier) and continue to matchmake, however any member deemed guilty of "piloting" would not be able to participate, in both defensive placements of their champions, and attacking, either for the remainder of the season or X number of wars. This punishment would remain on the player for the remainder of the season or X number of wars, regardless of what alliance they went to, to indicate the severity of their wrongdoing. In order to allow other alliances to know of this players inability to participate in war, potentially add a value indicator on their profile (maybe at the top right/left of the champion portrait) indicating a number of how many wars they are not allowed to participate in. This would allow the alliance leadership who may be unaware of the "piloting" or other wrongdoings done by a specific player and take appropriate action in rectifying the situation, rather than the alliance as a whole being deducted season points, war rating and being unable to determine the source of the issue. This would still ultimately punish the alliance as they would have to face the enemy short handed and with a limited defense, (if they choose to keep the offenders). Or have to recruit the replacements in a very short period of time and replan all the attacking/defensive plans in order to rectify the problem.
I recognize that potentially none of these solutions may be implemented, but just wanted to share some thoughts that I had heard others discussing.
People keep calling it a nerf, but that's not at all what it is. It's a rotating Node. Nothing is changing about the Champs themselves. As for buffs, they've done a few and no doubt there's room for more. However, I think the list that people consider useless/less effective is much higher than can reasonably be reworked. There's a tendency to discard anything not God Tier. Buffs have to be calculated and done carefully, and within balance of other progress. It's not a matter of just sweeping all the old Champs.
When the game only allows you to max out 3-5 total champs after playing for 3+ years then the players HAVE to discard non god tier champs. It's a self inflicted problem, that they have total control over.
Kabam, and many of their blind supporters on this forum, don't seem to understand that in a game like this any change, even a small one, has a huge impact on everyone. Of course people who are in tiers that won't change can speculate on how those changes will impact players, but they won't actually know.
Yes, the impact is you can't rely in Bleed for a Season. Given your example, if all 3-5 rely on Bleed, that's more of a tactical issue than Resources. Personally, I wouldn't put all my eggs in one basket, but that's how I Rank.
In any case, there are many other options besides Bleed. No doubt 6*s have been acquired as well. I doubt they're all Bleed. Nor do you need to use a Max Champ. Point is, there are choices.
The whole reaction is as if this is some type of permanent change. It's the first rotation. It's going to swap out. That's what I'm saying. The response is as if they've irreparably damaged Champs. It's a Node. One that won't stay indefinitely, and doesn't change the Champs at all. Still just as useful.
For the record, there are quite a few other Debuffs. I don't care what Tier I'm in. I wouldn't rely on one alone. There's Incinerate, Shock, Armor Break, Degen, etc. That brings me back to my original point. People will survive. They'll just have to do something different. That's the real argument in my opinion. The same tactic can't be used indefinitely if the game mode wants to be challenging.
Who are your 3-5 r5 5* champs again?
How many times will you keep responding that way before you realize it's just old. If you want to have a serious discussion, try doing it on topic and without calling people out on what they have and don't have. Unless you can point out how my Roster pertains to a Global Node.
People keep calling it a nerf, but that's not at all what it is. It's a rotating Node. Nothing is changing about the Champs themselves. As for buffs, they've done a few and no doubt there's room for more. However, I think the list that people consider useless/less effective is much higher than can reasonably be reworked. There's a tendency to discard anything not God Tier. Buffs have to be calculated and done carefully, and within balance of other progress. It's not a matter of just sweeping all the old Champs.
When the game only allows you to max out 3-5 total champs after playing for 3+ years then the players HAVE to discard non god tier champs. It's a self inflicted problem, that they have total control over.
Kabam, and many of their blind supporters on this forum, don't seem to understand that in a game like this any change, even a small one, has a huge impact on everyone. Of course people who are in tiers that won't change can speculate on how those changes will impact players, but they won't actually know.
Yes, the impact is you can't rely in Bleed for a Season. Given your example, if all 3-5 rely on Bleed, that's more of a tactical issue than Resources. Personally, I wouldn't put all my eggs in one basket, but that's how I Rank.
In any case, there are many other options besides Bleed. No doubt 6*s have been acquired as well. I doubt they're all Bleed. Nor do you need to use a Max Champ. Point is, there are choices.
The whole reaction is as if this is some type of permanent change. It's the first rotation. It's going to swap out. That's what I'm saying. The response is as if they've irreparably damaged Champs. It's a Node. One that won't stay indefinitely, and doesn't change the Champs at all. Still just as useful.
For the record, there are quite a few other Debuffs. I don't care what Tier I'm in. I wouldn't rely on one alone. There's Incinerate, Shock, Armor Break, Degen, etc. That brings me back to my original point. People will survive. They'll just have to do something different. That's the real argument in my opinion. The same tactic can't be used indefinitely if the game mode wants to be challenging.
The point is you once again don’t know what you’re talking about. Most nodes already have 5 or 6 debuffs on them already so they’re already limited by what champs are effective. Now they’ve slapped on another to make it even worse. I love the fact that low level players think that just because some people are playing at a higher level means they just go to their bag of champs and pull out the next counter and rank 5 him real quick and just keep going. For as much as you claim to know that’s not how it works. I’m a mid level player and have good champs and will probably get by fine but that’s not the point. The point is they’re setting a terrible precedent going forward and once again making it harder without touching the rewards. I’ve never played a game where it seems like it gets continuously harder and more is added but the rewards stay the same for a year. So far war has been very one sided. Every off season they change it and make it harder and we’re expected to keep paying for the same exact thing.
Playing at that level consistently means they will have more options. That's just a fact.
I don't know how many times Kabam needs to hear it, but nothing is going to change until they do one of two things.
1: Buff already existing champs to make them more desirable for summoners to take to higher ranks
2: Make rare rank up materials (tier 2 alphas and t5 basics) more readily available so it isn't so costly for us to use said resources.
Currently these two issues form a loop that will not be broken until Kabam decides to fix one of the problems. Some of the reasons for the loop are as follows.
- Summoners in tiers 1-5 have a select pool of r4 and r5 5* champions that they form their attack team from.
- Rank up materials (t2a and t5b) are too rare and don't allow summoners to rank up and explore other champions and their abilities.
- Due to this shortage summoners must resort to patiently waiting for the absolute best champs in the game before rank ups.
- AW is so competitive that only the champions we all know can be played successfully without deaths are brought into the mode (what some deem god tier).
All of these things work against what Kabam is trying to get done and until they try to fix it nothing will change. We will just be forced to even further limit who we bring into AW.
What Kabam has done with Red Hulk, Luke Cage, Venom and Carnage is nothing short of awesome. People are ranking and using those champs now, when previously they were just the butt of many MCOC jokes. Great job Kabam you've figured out to encourage diversity! That formula works. This "Developer's Thoughts" one just discourages most players including myself.
When you buff old champs I want to grind and pay for more rank up materials so I can rank up more champs. When you nerf, I think why bother, they'll just nerf the good ones anyway making my efforts and money spent a waste.
Why the sudden 180 here? You were going in the right direction, then out of nowhere this.
They explain their position in the announcement. Although introducing new champs (and revisiting old ones) can change the strategic balance of the game, it does so extremely slowly, and not consistently either. They are attempting to change the way alliance war plays out strategically, so players perceive more strategic avenues.
Part of the problem is that buffing old champions or introducing new champions tends to only displace previous options by superceding them, they don't add new options as often. It doesn't add counterplay if the best AW attacker gets replaced with a different best AW attacker. That's not the change that the developers are interested in. What they want is more of a rock/paper/scissors gameplay where there game encourages players to place defenses that are better against the most common attackers than just placing the strongest defense period, and force attackers to then respond to that by reconsidering who they bring on offense to respond to the actions of the players.
Introducing new champions and buffing old ones does encourage players to either hunt for them or rank them up if they had them on the bench. But that's not the problem specified as the problem they are trying to attack with their Dev Diary. It isn't a 180 turn from their point of view.
That is simply not possible in this game. With 3-5 maximum r5 chams and 85% of all champs being garbage on defense or offense, no one can or will actually adjust their teams to anything.
They already do: they adjust to new champions being introduced. If they didn't, then @OKAYGang's notion of new and buff champs actually improving anything would be false. The problem is that the speed at which this can be done is very slow, which is a problem Kabam is aware of and considering ways to address.
Gonna post one of the ideas I threw at kabam bc I liked it lol. And we're allowed to share our feedback.
Counterplay is one pillar and I really like that focus, tho I question how well global nodes achieve that. The following idea kinda takes the notion of counterplay and smushes it together w their node idea.
Placement day- each alliance selects one single buff or debuff from a pool (options chosen by kabam, can be changed daily/weekly/per season)
If a buff is selected, it would be applied to that team's defenders. If debuff, it is applied to the enemy attackers. Normal defender placements happens during this time as well.
Attack day- each alliance is shown the buff/debuff selected by the enemy. They are allowed to select one more buff/debuff from the pool. In this case, if a buff is selected.. It would be applied to their attackers while a debuff would be applied to enemy defenders. Then each team can scout paths and choose attackers as normal.
With this, you still have a traditional war... But you also have direct counterplay both in buff/debuff selections and in attacker choice. You also have higher strategies of matching your defenders to your selected phase 1 buff/debuff. It seemed like a fun twist to me.
Admittedly, I haven't played it out far beyond the nugget of the idea as far as which buffs/debuffs should go into the pool and how they would interact/cancel each other out, etc. Seems doable without too many issues tho.
@chunkyb Dead on. Allowing alliances to select a single buff or debuff from options selected by Kabam would be exhilarating.
Buff 2 - Bleed Immunity:
- Bleed immunity affects Defenders
- Bringing in Debuff heavy Champions will still be a viable option, but Champions that rely heavily on Bleed will not be as effective this Season.
Can you please expand on this. A R5 killmonger on node 29 will now be impposible to beat unless you have a corvius. People would use blade because that was the only other counter. Node 29 is a problem and you are not hellping this out at all, just making it a lot more difficult
I take it you haven't heard of Magik.
What about Archangel
@hatchetkilla There will be a Bleed Immune Global Node... so Archangel will awful for Season 5 of AW in general... as will champs like Gwenpool, X-23 & Domino.
The alliance I'm in won't go past the 1 an 2 on aw,, I need get into a new one because their holding me up
Playing at that level consistently means they will have more options. That's just a fact.
Sigh. At times it seems you're not simply missing the gist of an argument, but purposefully avoiding it. Truth is, there aren't an infinite (or even a large) number of counters to specific alliance war nodes in higher tiers. Let alone to entire paths. And no, not everyone that is affected by this euphemism for 'we want you to spend more to clear your line' has a whole team of 5/5 champs on the bench.
Me, I'm in a consistently Gold 1 alliance (yes, we're affected). Out of our 30 members, only three (!) have two (!) maxed out five stars. None of us has a rank 2 six star. And roughly half (I'd have to check) of the players make do with 5/4 and/or lower ranked champs. The 15 or so members who do have one or two maxed five stars, all ranked for the most difficult and potentially most profitable game-mode, AW. None of us ranked up champs specifically for other content. Mostly, because none of us really struggle in other content.
Given that Blade and other bleeders (KM and AA, for instance) were among the best (few) AW offensive options, it stands to reason that most maxed those champs. So, to reiterate, for alliances at our level - not crazy high up there, just 'solid' Gold 1 - this little experiment doesn't hamper 'a few' of our top champs, but - in many cases - all of them. We hardly have any to begin with!
And given that the number of counters to specific (successions of) nodes/champs on specific lines, is insanely limited, the only way for most of us to (maybe) still make it through, is by spending a ton of items. Would we like to use different champs? Sure, we would! But only if those stood a chance to succeed. Also, if you could lead the way to the pot of rank up materials at the end of your argumentative rainbow, that would be a great help.
In short; you have no idea what you're talking about. And I don't think you care either.
Playing at that level consistently means they will have more options. That's just a fact.
Sigh. At times it seems you're not simply missing the gist of an argument, but purposefully avoiding it. Truth is, there aren't an infinite (or even a large) number of counters to specific alliance war nodes in higher tiers. Let alone to entire paths. And no, not everyone that is affected by this euphemism for 'we want you to spend more to clear your line' has a whole team of 5/5 champs on the bench.
Me, I'm in a consistently Gold 1 alliance (yes, we're affected). Out of our 30 members, only three (!) have two (!) maxed out five stars. None of us has a rank 2 six star. And roughly half (I'd have to check) of the players make do with 5/4 and/or lower ranked champs. The 15 or so members who do have one or two maxed five stars, all ranked for the most difficult and potentially most profitable game-mode, AW. None of us ranked up champs specifically for other content. Mostly, because none of us really struggle in other content.
Given that Blade and other bleeders (KM and AA, for instance) were among the best (few) AW offensive options, it stands to reason that most maxed those champs. So, to reiterate, for alliances at our level - not crazy high up there, just 'solid' Gold 1 - this little experiment doesn't hamper 'a few' of our top champs, but - in many cases - all of them. We hardly have any to begin with!
And given that the number of counters to specific (successions of) nodes/champs on specific lines, is insanely limited, the only way for most of us to (maybe) still make it through, is by spending a ton of items. Would we like to use different champs? Sure, we would! But only if those stood a chance to succeed. Also, if you could lead the way to the pot of rank up materials at the end of your argumentative rainbow, that would be a great help.
In short; you have no idea what you're talking about. And I don't think you care either.
Comments
X-23 is probably one of the few winners in the global buff shuffle. Although she loses bleed she gains (I presume) her bleed immunity cruelty stacks which is probably a close to neutral swap, and in the meantime she gets the female champion heightened class advantage bonus on attack.
This reflexive who's good who's bad snap judgments are part of what I suspect the dynamic intent is intended to stamp out.
I'm inclined to agree. If the Top 5% has maintained their position without developing significant enough Rosters to deal with a Bleed Immune Node, that would outline a much larger flaw with the design. I'm with you. People will no doubt be able to adjust, overall. If they're of limited Rosters and Resources, I'm curious what they are doing in the Top 5%.
How about the alliance can assign a set amount of nodes (6 per BG) specific to the Defender. Same ones used in Act.
Give people a reason to place:
Moon knight - Lunatic, Daredevil - Radar, Like Cage - Reborn.
Let the alliance pick where the node goes.
Without changing the entrie framework of AW you increase strategy. Keep it fresh changing it monthly and add Diversity to Defense without placing a sack of potatoes.
A Global Node and bleed immune just make most of the repeat defenders better
If you’ve at go the Bleed Immune route Then you should refund my Deep Wounds same as MD..
Based on today’s offer you took away over $100 worth of resources when on a Sale!! Or over $200 every other day if the year
I was temporarily retired and missed that give away
Someone earlier was complaining that alternative debuffers like X-23 and Elektra only work on naturally immune champs. So no cruelty or armor breaks.
I agree with the idea that information would help change who people bring. I am in what used to be a Plat 1 alliance until the end of the season (now a home for the semi-retired due to burnout) and the information gathering to decide paths after the intro of seasons and the accompanying roster boom promoted a transition from Blade, GR and Iceman to 3 from Hyperion, Blade, Medusa, Corvus, Iceman, Rulk, etc. depending on the scouting, classes visible, and common strategic placements. Luckily we had a ton of 4-55s and at least 2 5-65s each to make that happen.
What they are doing now isn't a solution. Kabam themselves state that their goal is to allow the players to have more control over how they use global buff-like mechanics in conjunction with their defense placement, but this was just a first early step to validating the idea and to slowly introduce the concept to the players.
Ref: "We’ll start off a little slow with Season 5. Although our intention is to allow Summoners to choose a buff that synergises well with their Defense rosters."
When you buff old champs I want to grind and pay for more rank up materials so I can rank up more champs. When you nerf, I think why bother, they'll just nerf the good ones anyway making my efforts and money spent a waste.
Why the sudden 180 here? You were going in the right direction, then out of nowhere this.
The tendency to discard anything not God Tier is a natural consequence of too few resources. If Kabam wants diversity, people will need more ranking materials otherwise they’ll still bring their same old proven guys that they’ve ranked to usability and fight at a slight disadvantage because that’s all they have.
Everyone everywhere hates forced changes that make their situation worse. That's a terrible way to promote change. Offer incentives and the ability to dust off old champs a rank them and people will. Some of the old champs could be tightened up pretty quickly. It's not brain surgery or anything. Look at the successful champs and figure out what makes them successful. There's a few things that they know people find desirable in a champ and things that people hate. They could figure it out for a few champs without a tedious, overly long beta period.
They explain their position in the announcement. Although introducing new champs (and revisiting old ones) can change the strategic balance of the game, it does so extremely slowly, and not consistently either. They are attempting to change the way alliance war plays out strategically, so players perceive more strategic avenues.
Part of the problem is that buffing old champions or introducing new champions tends to only displace previous options by superceding them, they don't add new options as often. It doesn't add counterplay if the best AW attacker gets replaced with a different best AW attacker. That's not the change that the developers are interested in. What they want is more of a rock/paper/scissors gameplay where there game encourages players to place defenses that are better against the most common attackers than just placing the strongest defense period, and force attackers to then respond to that by reconsidering who they bring on offense to respond to the actions of the players.
Introducing new champions and buffing old ones does encourage players to either hunt for them or rank them up if they had them on the bench. But that's not the problem specified as the problem they are trying to attack with their Dev Diary. It isn't a 180 turn from their point of view.
Perfectly explained.
Also buffing the (many) bad champs will help in the long term to diversify aq/aw/quest teams naturally.
I really hope Kabam drops this terrible idea and takes inspiration from the MANY ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS proposed in this forum. A lot of positive feedback and valuable ideas here.
@Kabam Miike
When the game only allows you to max out 3-5 total champs after playing for 3+ years then the players HAVE to discard non god tier champs. It's a self inflicted problem, that they have total control over.
Kabam, and many of their blind supporters on this forum, don't seem to understand that in a game like this any change, even a small one, has a huge impact on everyone. Of course people who are in tiers that won't change can speculate on how those changes will impact players, but they won't actually know.
That is simply not possible in this game. With 3-5 maximum r5 chams and 85% of all champs being garbage on defense or offense, no one can or will actually adjust their teams to anything.
It actually scares me how little the dev team seems to understand about how the game works.
Most players have at least 3-5 good champs for AW attack, and most likely at least 1 of those will have a heavy reliance on bleed. Take that ability away, and they are now left with only 4 viable attackers. This isn't some magical solution that forces us to diversify our attack team, it forces us to even further limit who we bring to the attack phase.
I previously had 4 champs that I rotated between using on AW attack, one of those was AA. With these changes, I have no choice but to sit AA on the bench which now leaves me with an attack team that will never change. Exactly the thing Kabam said they didn't want to do.
Let's keep the discussion constructive and post new ideas, no need to argue with people defending the main post ;-)
For example, another option could be to provide, before the start of the AW season, some rank up/down material to let everybody adjust to the changing nodes.
Let's say 3 items to rank up a 5* and 3 items to rank down a 5*
5 items to rank up a 4* and 5 items to rank down a 4*
Just a rough idea.
I am sure that you will stick with your plan of implementing global nodes in AW, so I'll have to adapt. However, the lack of rank up materials will make it very hard to adjust my rotation of AW attackers and defenders, which is something you have stated as a goal: More diversity.
"Having the right Champion, and being lucky in Crystal pulls, is much more important than we would like it to be."
It isn't just having the right champ though, it's also being able to get them to a suitable level in order to compete in high tier wars. For reference, I have finished in P3 the last two seasons, fighting in tier 3 all of last season. I have never been below tier 4 since Seasons started.
If you are going go forward with these global nodes AND will continue keeping the rate a player can acquire T2A and T5B at it's current level AND if you would like to see more diversity in AW, I would like to suggest the following to you for your consideration.
1. Increase the attack timer from three minutes to five or six minutes.
Three minutes is just not enough time in most cases for a r3 5* to be useful when every death counts. This would make an r3 5* champ much more viable as an attack option in the hands of a skilled player that takes very few hits over the course of a war.
It would also increase the number of champs to consider bringing to r4 for attack by adding high utility/lower damage output champs to the discussion. Rogue, Dorm, GR, Beast come to mind here. In addition to increasing the timers you could also
2. Remove the challenger rating in AW.
Again, this would give players more incentive to bring r3 5*/r5 4* champs in on AW attack, allowing skillful players to utilize more of their rosters. It may also allow players to consider taking strictly defensive oriented 5* champs to r4 more often as they would likely have more attack options to choose from in their pool of r3 5*/r5 4* champs.
3. Make all champs visible on the map.
This would be a controversial change, but it would also force us to carefully consider placements knowing our opponents can prepare for their paths in advance. And by implementing this along with #1 and #2 above, it would almost certainly encourage alliances to really plan out player's paths, thereby shaking up the monotony of players typically having one assigned path because they have the champs in their roster to allow for the most success based on the most likely defenders one would see on certain nodes coupled with the nodes themselves. Have an r4/r5 Void? Welcome to path 6/7...every time.
As an example, if AW season 5 is rolled out with the Amped Up and Bleed Immune global nodes and the above changes were also made, my r3 Rogue, Angela, Proxima, or Psylocke could come off of my bench. Those players with an r3 Void may be able to take path 6/7, allowing the player with the r4 Void to possibly take a different path using different champs. This would make things more "dynamic" from war to war as players would more than likely be taking different paths with different champs based on visible matchups.
I think changes like this could actually make AW fun again. I welcome any input from my fellow players on the above.
In any case, there are many other options besides Bleed. No doubt 6*s have been acquired as well. I doubt they're all Bleed. Nor do you need to use a Max Champ. Point is, there are choices.
The whole reaction is as if this is some type of permanent change. It's the first rotation. It's going to swap out. That's what I'm saying. The response is as if they've irreparably damaged Champs. It's a Node. One that won't stay indefinitely, and doesn't change the Champs at all. Still just as useful.
For the record, there are quite a few other Debuffs. I don't care what Tier I'm in. I wouldn't rely on one alone. There's Incinerate, Shock, Armor Break, Degen, etc. That brings me back to my original point. People will survive. They'll just have to do something different. That's the real argument in my opinion. The same tactic can't be used indefinitely if the game mode wants to be challenging.
Who are your 3-5 r5 5* champs again?
Counterplay is one pillar and I really like that focus, tho I question how well global nodes achieve that. The following idea kinda takes the notion of counterplay and smushes it together w their node idea.
Placement day- each alliance selects one single buff or debuff from a pool (options chosen by kabam, can be changed daily/weekly/per season)
If a buff is selected, it would be applied to that team's defenders. If debuff, it is applied to the enemy attackers. Normal defender placements happens during this time as well.
Attack day- each alliance is shown the buff/debuff selected by the enemy. They are allowed to select one more buff/debuff from the pool. In this case, if a buff is selected.. It would be applied to their attackers while a debuff would be applied to enemy defenders. Then each team can scout paths and choose attackers as normal.
With this, you still have a traditional war... But you also have direct counterplay both in buff/debuff selections and in attacker choice. You also have higher strategies of matching your defenders to your selected phase 1 buff/debuff. It seemed like a fun twist to me.
Admittedly, I haven't played it out far beyond the nugget of the idea as far as which buffs/debuffs should go into the pool and how they would interact/cancel each other out, etc. Seems doable without too many issues tho.
@Kabam Miike I know that the Team is currently working on how to approach this issue, and I'm sure there's tons of suggested ideas out there in order to address how to best punish an alliance caught "piloting" in order to achieve their wins. I just wanted to list some ideas I've heard out there, in hopes that this may allow the best way to address the problem to be implemented:
I think the pillar idea is to NOT drop the alliance's war rating, but still dock their total seasons points. This tremendously hurts any alliance that Top Alliances match up with. I've seen a lot of "potentially Platinum 3" alliances end up facing someone who was punished and dropped down to their war rating, only to get demolished cause they're facing more Rank 4, Level 55, 5 Star champions against people with more expansive rosters, which then ultimately affect the alliances in the lower tiers and further affecting the final season placements.
- Someone suggested locking them out from matchmaking entirely for the remainder of the season, and wherever their deducted season points lands them, that's what they end up receiving. - I think this is somewhat useful, however this may result in a lot of alliances disbanding and going to a "shell" alliance or another "sister" alliance in order to preserve their season rewards depending on how many wars are left in the season.
- Someone suggested allowing them to remain at their war rating (and respective Alliance War Tier) and continue to matchmake, however any member deemed guilty of "piloting" would not be able to participate, in both defensive placements of their champions, and attacking, either for the remainder of the season or X number of wars. This punishment would remain on the player for the remainder of the season or X number of wars, regardless of what alliance they went to, to indicate the severity of their wrongdoing. In order to allow other alliances to know of this players inability to participate in war, potentially add a value indicator on their profile (maybe at the top right/left of the champion portrait) indicating a number of how many wars they are not allowed to participate in. This would allow the alliance leadership who may be unaware of the "piloting" or other wrongdoings done by a specific player and take appropriate action in rectifying the situation, rather than the alliance as a whole being deducted season points, war rating and being unable to determine the source of the issue. This would still ultimately punish the alliance as they would have to face the enemy short handed and with a limited defense, (if they choose to keep the offenders). Or have to recruit the replacements in a very short period of time and replan all the attacking/defensive plans in order to rectify the problem.
I recognize that potentially none of these solutions may be implemented, but just wanted to share some thoughts that I had heard others discussing.
How many times will you keep responding that way before you realize it's just old. If you want to have a serious discussion, try doing it on topic and without calling people out on what they have and don't have. Unless you can point out how my Roster pertains to a Global Node.
Playing at that level consistently means they will have more options. That's just a fact.
1: Buff already existing champs to make them more desirable for summoners to take to higher ranks
2: Make rare rank up materials (tier 2 alphas and t5 basics) more readily available so it isn't so costly for us to use said resources.
Currently these two issues form a loop that will not be broken until Kabam decides to fix one of the problems. Some of the reasons for the loop are as follows.
- Summoners in tiers 1-5 have a select pool of r4 and r5 5* champions that they form their attack team from.
- Rank up materials (t2a and t5b) are too rare and don't allow summoners to rank up and explore other champions and their abilities.
- Due to this shortage summoners must resort to patiently waiting for the absolute best champs in the game before rank ups.
- AW is so competitive that only the champions we all know can be played successfully without deaths are brought into the mode (what some deem god tier).
All of these things work against what Kabam is trying to get done and until they try to fix it nothing will change. We will just be forced to even further limit who we bring into AW.
They already do: they adjust to new champions being introduced. If they didn't, then @OKAYGang's notion of new and buff champs actually improving anything would be false. The problem is that the speed at which this can be done is very slow, which is a problem Kabam is aware of and considering ways to address.
@chunkyb Dead on. Allowing alliances to select a single buff or debuff from options selected by Kabam would be exhilarating.
The alliance I'm in won't go past the 1 an 2 on aw,, I need get into a new one because their holding me up
Sigh. At times it seems you're not simply missing the gist of an argument, but purposefully avoiding it. Truth is, there aren't an infinite (or even a large) number of counters to specific alliance war nodes in higher tiers. Let alone to entire paths. And no, not everyone that is affected by this euphemism for 'we want you to spend more to clear your line' has a whole team of 5/5 champs on the bench.
Me, I'm in a consistently Gold 1 alliance (yes, we're affected). Out of our 30 members, only three (!) have two (!) maxed out five stars. None of us has a rank 2 six star. And roughly half (I'd have to check) of the players make do with 5/4 and/or lower ranked champs. The 15 or so members who do have one or two maxed five stars, all ranked for the most difficult and potentially most profitable game-mode, AW. None of us ranked up champs specifically for other content. Mostly, because none of us really struggle in other content.
Given that Blade and other bleeders (KM and AA, for instance) were among the best (few) AW offensive options, it stands to reason that most maxed those champs. So, to reiterate, for alliances at our level - not crazy high up there, just 'solid' Gold 1 - this little experiment doesn't hamper 'a few' of our top champs, but - in many cases - all of them. We hardly have any to begin with!
And given that the number of counters to specific (successions of) nodes/champs on specific lines, is insanely limited, the only way for most of us to (maybe) still make it through, is by spending a ton of items. Would we like to use different champs? Sure, we would! But only if those stood a chance to succeed. Also, if you could lead the way to the pot of rank up materials at the end of your argumentative rainbow, that would be a great help.
In short; you have no idea what you're talking about. And I don't think you care either.
Fantastic post. Nail on head.