Alliance War Matchmaking/QoL suggestions
VglyB
Member Posts: 8
Hey all,
I sent an improvement suggestion ticket to Kabam with the following message. Just posting it here to see what the community thinks about these ideas as well. It’s a bit lengthy, but I think they are reasonable and balanced ideas, so please respond with your reaction if you have the time.
“The recent changes to the Alliance War matchmaking are not good for the overall experience that a mobile game should deliver. There are two reasons why the system fails:
First, a two step enrollment process is unnecessarily complicated, and requires a certain level of forward planning that a “pick-up-and-go” mobile game should not incorporate.
Second, having the actual war start at a time determined by the game is unfriendly to alliances with members from different time zones. Even though the war may last 24 hours, the last few hours are often the deciding ones. Not allowing the players to chose when their own war starts and finishes gives an unfair advantage to alliances that have a large number of players active during the time that the war would finish. This is made worse by the fact that more difficult maps have a cascading progression strategy due to linked nodes requiring different people to clear multiple paths to progress. Often a player is left unable to progress while waiting for an alliance member to clear a linked node, and then the war finishes before he is able to complete his path due so the last hours being in the middle of the night.
As for possible solutions: For the first point, I can only assume the registration change was made to optimize the matchmaking algorithm by limiting/confirming the participants before needing to create matches. I would propose that instead of this, an alliance could toggle Alliance War enlistment on/off. Once toggled on, their alliance would be included as a possible match for other alliances. You could still allow the system to matchmake at predetermined intervals, but have that happen behind the scenes and not require any input past the aforementioned toggle.
For my second point, I think it must be very difficult and innefficient to let all alliances chose their own start times. Instead, there are two possible solutions I can think of (A and
.
Point 2, (A) solution would be one or some combination of the following: to get rid of the linked nodes in Wars; reduce the effects of linked nodes significantly; or invert the way they work (this means rather than give a buff to the defender when active, give temporary buff to the attacker once deactivated). This would allow people to reasonably progress whenever they want instead of waiting for other members - especially the third case would preserve the team-work nature of linked nodes, allow weaker members to contribute more with buffs, but avoid the time-zone restrictions by making it easier to progress through linked nodes.
Point 2, (B) solution would be to add a 12-hour “Grace-period” to the end of a war. I imagine this as being basically a 12-hour extension of the war with some limitations/restrictions to differentiate it from the 24hr War period. These restrictions/limitations could be one or more of the following: No exploration contribution (locked to % explored in 24hrs), reduced points for clearing a Tile, no item use. These changes would allow people whose time zone isn’t ideal for the determined 24-hr war period to contribute fully at reasonable hours, while still preserving the competitve advantage that a well-organized alliance would gain by finishing in 24-hours.
Thank you for reading this. I truly believe that all of the changes as I have described here would make the Alliance War matchmaking system much more friendly for the players, and reduce a lot of the restrictions and frustrations that make it unenjoyable for some casual players. “
I sent an improvement suggestion ticket to Kabam with the following message. Just posting it here to see what the community thinks about these ideas as well. It’s a bit lengthy, but I think they are reasonable and balanced ideas, so please respond with your reaction if you have the time.
“The recent changes to the Alliance War matchmaking are not good for the overall experience that a mobile game should deliver. There are two reasons why the system fails:
First, a two step enrollment process is unnecessarily complicated, and requires a certain level of forward planning that a “pick-up-and-go” mobile game should not incorporate.
Second, having the actual war start at a time determined by the game is unfriendly to alliances with members from different time zones. Even though the war may last 24 hours, the last few hours are often the deciding ones. Not allowing the players to chose when their own war starts and finishes gives an unfair advantage to alliances that have a large number of players active during the time that the war would finish. This is made worse by the fact that more difficult maps have a cascading progression strategy due to linked nodes requiring different people to clear multiple paths to progress. Often a player is left unable to progress while waiting for an alliance member to clear a linked node, and then the war finishes before he is able to complete his path due so the last hours being in the middle of the night.
As for possible solutions: For the first point, I can only assume the registration change was made to optimize the matchmaking algorithm by limiting/confirming the participants before needing to create matches. I would propose that instead of this, an alliance could toggle Alliance War enlistment on/off. Once toggled on, their alliance would be included as a possible match for other alliances. You could still allow the system to matchmake at predetermined intervals, but have that happen behind the scenes and not require any input past the aforementioned toggle.
For my second point, I think it must be very difficult and innefficient to let all alliances chose their own start times. Instead, there are two possible solutions I can think of (A and
. Point 2, (A) solution would be one or some combination of the following: to get rid of the linked nodes in Wars; reduce the effects of linked nodes significantly; or invert the way they work (this means rather than give a buff to the defender when active, give temporary buff to the attacker once deactivated). This would allow people to reasonably progress whenever they want instead of waiting for other members - especially the third case would preserve the team-work nature of linked nodes, allow weaker members to contribute more with buffs, but avoid the time-zone restrictions by making it easier to progress through linked nodes.
Point 2, (B) solution would be to add a 12-hour “Grace-period” to the end of a war. I imagine this as being basically a 12-hour extension of the war with some limitations/restrictions to differentiate it from the 24hr War period. These restrictions/limitations could be one or more of the following: No exploration contribution (locked to % explored in 24hrs), reduced points for clearing a Tile, no item use. These changes would allow people whose time zone isn’t ideal for the determined 24-hr war period to contribute fully at reasonable hours, while still preserving the competitve advantage that a well-organized alliance would gain by finishing in 24-hours.
Thank you for reading this. I truly believe that all of the changes as I have described here would make the Alliance War matchmaking system much more friendly for the players, and reduce a lot of the restrictions and frustrations that make it unenjoyable for some casual players. “
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