**Mastery Loadouts**
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.

Does anyone even do AW anymore?

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Comments

  • LormifLormif Posts: 7,369 ★★★★★
    BuddyGuyFriend said:

    If the current set up and nodes are staying for next season, my platinum 3 rank 57 23million rated alliance is done spending any items at all for war. We already agreed. We went from winning 8 wars in a row before the update to losing the last 6 in a row, and only one war we even made it out of the first section. And to squash any "get good" comments, the opposing team had just as much of a struggle against us those wars too. Before update we were lucky to have more than 4-5 kills on defense before they made it to the last mini boss/boss section - now its double digits and one war had over 30 kills. The difficulty was increased exponentially compared to last season. Most of us have played this for 4 years plus now and this could be the final blow to our enthusiasm for the game as a whole. It's not fun getting absolutely destroyed due to a node rather than skill every single war now and doesn't seem sustainable from a business perspective. After all the issues we've seen with bugs and champs released only to be fixed soon after almost every month this year, to the extremely lackluster and underwhelming Endgame tie in event, to have this changed along with an increase to AQ difficulty just makes us all scratch our heads. Our line chats went from strategy to "well lets ride this out and see if they fix things, if not we're gonna be semi retired and only seriously run map 6 all week in AQ, and war gets our weaker teams and probably slide down to gold one again."

    If that's what Kabam was intending with this rollout it's kind of baffling, but at least to my group and other friends I know who play, every single person has expressed some kind of similar response. I'm interested to see others in the top alliances share their experience so far now that we have over a week running the changes.

    getting killed due to a node is still getting killed due to you lacking skill. It takes time to adjust, you want to skip that and stay exactly where you were.
  • SkkcSkkc Posts: 110 ★
    It’s a cash grabbing clown fiesta. These changes are so stupid. Wonder if they even test them. Beta testing is not all transparent either. aegis node was never in there. Classic kabam lying to their customers. What’s the point of the having a beta test if you are not going to listen to your community.
  • SkkcSkkc Posts: 110 ★
    The game keeps getting more and more expensive to play. You make one mistake and it costs $10. The pressure and frustration is just too much for most of us to handle. But they don’t care about this. They just care about making MO’ MONEY
  • SiriusBreakSiriusBreak Posts: 2,156 Guardian
    While this thread has many legitimate points, best to bring your grievances en mass to the main thread. That thread has died down and I know why. Most have already enacted contingency plans. As clearly stated by many here. Some will undoubtedly continue trying to elevate their game regardless of the overkill nodes (and some simply are just that). Others have made it clear that AW is either on the backburner or completely off. Bring it all here...

    https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/140076/early-look-new-alliance-wars-maps-discussion-thread#latest

    Some will disagree, and that's their choice. While our Alliance will continue trying to learn and overcome the challenges as is, not one of us is blind to what's happening. Just at the point of acceptance is all. The likelihood anything will change is seemingly slim. That is, unless the majority step it up on beating that proverbial dead horse (seemingly so). I'm hoping the data showing the many Alliances that ran into walls helps the case. It's indeed a difficult map once you step into Challenger and beyond. Not to mention the need for 9 players to advance out of section 1. It's crazy. I guess only time will tell.
  • BuddyGuyFriendBuddyGuyFriend Posts: 54 ★
    Lormif said:

    BuddyGuyFriend said:

    If the current set up and nodes are staying for next season, my platinum 3 rank 57 23million rated alliance is done spending any items at all for war. We already agreed. We went from winning 8 wars in a row before the update to losing the last 6 in a row, and only one war we even made it out of the first section. And to squash any "get good" comments, the opposing team had just as much of a struggle against us those wars too. Before update we were lucky to have more than 4-5 kills on defense before they made it to the last mini boss/boss section - now its double digits and one war had over 30 kills. The difficulty was increased exponentially compared to last season. Most of us have played this for 4 years plus now and this could be the final blow to our enthusiasm for the game as a whole. It's not fun getting absolutely destroyed due to a node rather than skill every single war now and doesn't seem sustainable from a business perspective. After all the issues we've seen with bugs and champs released only to be fixed soon after almost every month this year, to the extremely lackluster and underwhelming Endgame tie in event, to have this changed along with an increase to AQ difficulty just makes us all scratch our heads. Our line chats went from strategy to "well lets ride this out and see if they fix things, if not we're gonna be semi retired and only seriously run map 6 all week in AQ, and war gets our weaker teams and probably slide down to gold one again."

    If that's what Kabam was intending with this rollout it's kind of baffling, but at least to my group and other friends I know who play, every single person has expressed some kind of similar response. I'm interested to see others in the top alliances share their experience so far now that we have over a week running the changes.

    getting killed due to a node is still getting killed due to you lacking skill. It takes time to adjust, you want to skip that and stay exactly where you were.
    I think we're gonna disagree on what you can define as skill and what a player needs to adapt to a node that is fair and challenging. Most of the new nodes are not fair and aren't able to be taken down with skill - it's requiring specific champions to counter, or just taking damage for the sake of it. The point remains though - if there's not a reward increase next season, why should any of us be taking the time to figure these out? It's not like there's a practice area we can work on it, and it goes against what was announced when the changes happened - that no increase in difficulty would happen. Do you really want to logically try and say 30 platinum 3 players who have played for years and hit top 200 in AQ suddenly all got really bad at the game overnight, and it was magically the same day the war map changed? It's pretty presumptuous to take a swipe at my skills when you don't know me at all or my player level. I've completed most of the game itself and would classify myself as near endgame, my rating is over 850k and I have multiple rank 5 five star champs. I've played this game since almost the beginning when it launched. If someone tells you their entire alliance and friend base who play this are struggling immediately and have no incentive to do this anymore, why wouldn't you take that at face value instead of questioning their skills and making an insult? How in the world is that productive or helping anyone at all?

    I was more asking for input from other players in similar alliances and situations, not some "get good" nonsense answer with a backhand. Thanks though.
  • LormifLormif Posts: 7,369 ★★★★★
    BuddyGuyFriend said:

    Lormif said:

    BuddyGuyFriend said:

    If the current set up and nodes are staying for next season, my platinum 3 rank 57 23million rated alliance is done spending any items at all for war. We already agreed. We went from winning 8 wars in a row before the update to losing the last 6 in a row, and only one war we even made it out of the first section. And to squash any "get good" comments, the opposing team had just as much of a struggle against us those wars too. Before update we were lucky to have more than 4-5 kills on defense before they made it to the last mini boss/boss section - now its double digits and one war had over 30 kills. The difficulty was increased exponentially compared to last season. Most of us have played this for 4 years plus now and this could be the final blow to our enthusiasm for the game as a whole. It's not fun getting absolutely destroyed due to a node rather than skill every single war now and doesn't seem sustainable from a business perspective. After all the issues we've seen with bugs and champs released only to be fixed soon after almost every month this year, to the extremely lackluster and underwhelming Endgame tie in event, to have this changed along with an increase to AQ difficulty just makes us all scratch our heads. Our line chats went from strategy to "well lets ride this out and see if they fix things, if not we're gonna be semi retired and only seriously run map 6 all week in AQ, and war gets our weaker teams and probably slide down to gold one again."

    If that's what Kabam was intending with this rollout it's kind of baffling, but at least to my group and other friends I know who play, every single person has expressed some kind of similar response. I'm interested to see others in the top alliances share their experience so far now that we have over a week running the changes.

    getting killed due to a node is still getting killed due to you lacking skill. It takes time to adjust, you want to skip that and stay exactly where you were.
    I think we're gonna disagree on what you can define as skill and what a player needs to adapt to a node that is fair and challenging. Most of the new nodes are not fair and aren't able to be taken down with skill - it's requiring specific champions to counter, or just taking damage for the sake of it. The point remains though - if there's not a reward increase next season, why should any of us be taking the time to figure these out? It's not like there's a practice area we can work on it, and it goes against what was announced when the changes happened - that no increase in difficulty would happen. Do you really want to logically try and say 30 platinum 3 players who have played for years and hit top 200 in AQ suddenly all got really bad at the game overnight, and it was magically the same day the war map changed? It's pretty presumptuous to take a swipe at my skills when you don't know me at all or my player level. I've completed most of the game itself and would classify myself as near endgame, my rating is over 850k and I have multiple rank 5 five star champs. I've played this game since almost the beginning when it launched. If someone tells you their entire alliance and friend base who play this are struggling immediately and have no incentive to do this anymore, why wouldn't you take that at face value instead of questioning their skills and making an insult? How in the world is that productive or helping anyone at all?

    I was more asking for input from other players in similar alliances and situations, not some "get good" nonsense answer with a backhand. Thanks though.
    They can all be taken down with skill. we just finished war with fairly low deaths. That means they can be taken down easily. What is "fair" though is relative.

    it is not a matter of "got really bad overnight" This is the fallacy that you keep telling yourself. it is a matter of things are different now and you need to learn to adapt, or just complain.

    I never took a swipe at your skills, only your logic, any perceived swipe is 100% in your own mind, everything after that is just a strawman.
  • BLEEDlNG_DGEBLEEDlNG_DGE Posts: 324 ★★
    Lormif said:

    BuddyGuyFriend said:

    If the current set up and nodes are staying for next season, my platinum 3 rank 57 23million rated alliance is done spending any items at all for war. We already agreed. We went from winning 8 wars in a row before the update to losing the last 6 in a row, and only one war we even made it out of the first section. And to squash any "get good" comments, the opposing team had just as much of a struggle against us those wars too. Before update we were lucky to have more than 4-5 kills on defense before they made it to the last mini boss/boss section - now its double digits and one war had over 30 kills. The difficulty was increased exponentially compared to last season. Most of us have played this for 4 years plus now and this could be the final blow to our enthusiasm for the game as a whole. It's not fun getting absolutely destroyed due to a node rather than skill every single war now and doesn't seem sustainable from a business perspective. After all the issues we've seen with bugs and champs released only to be fixed soon after almost every month this year, to the extremely lackluster and underwhelming Endgame tie in event, to have this changed along with an increase to AQ difficulty just makes us all scratch our heads. Our line chats went from strategy to "well lets ride this out and see if they fix things, if not we're gonna be semi retired and only seriously run map 6 all week in AQ, and war gets our weaker teams and probably slide down to gold one again."

    If that's what Kabam was intending with this rollout it's kind of baffling, but at least to my group and other friends I know who play, every single person has expressed some kind of similar response. I'm interested to see others in the top alliances share their experience so far now that we have over a week running the changes.

    getting killed due to a node is still getting killed due to you lacking skill. It takes time to adjust, you want to skip that and stay exactly where you were.
    Not entirely true. Some nodes rely heavily on boosts. Without them, no amount of skill can get you past. So no, not every node that kills you is a lack of skill.
  • LormifLormif Posts: 7,369 ★★★★★
    BLEEDlNG_DGE said:

    Lormif said:

    BuddyGuyFriend said:

    If the current set up and nodes are staying for next season, my platinum 3 rank 57 23million rated alliance is done spending any items at all for war. We already agreed. We went from winning 8 wars in a row before the update to losing the last 6 in a row, and only one war we even made it out of the first section. And to squash any "get good" comments, the opposing team had just as much of a struggle against us those wars too. Before update we were lucky to have more than 4-5 kills on defense before they made it to the last mini boss/boss section - now its double digits and one war had over 30 kills. The difficulty was increased exponentially compared to last season. Most of us have played this for 4 years plus now and this could be the final blow to our enthusiasm for the game as a whole. It's not fun getting absolutely destroyed due to a node rather than skill every single war now and doesn't seem sustainable from a business perspective. After all the issues we've seen with bugs and champs released only to be fixed soon after almost every month this year, to the extremely lackluster and underwhelming Endgame tie in event, to have this changed along with an increase to AQ difficulty just makes us all scratch our heads. Our line chats went from strategy to "well lets ride this out and see if they fix things, if not we're gonna be semi retired and only seriously run map 6 all week in AQ, and war gets our weaker teams and probably slide down to gold one again."

    If that's what Kabam was intending with this rollout it's kind of baffling, but at least to my group and other friends I know who play, every single person has expressed some kind of similar response. I'm interested to see others in the top alliances share their experience so far now that we have over a week running the changes.

    getting killed due to a node is still getting killed due to you lacking skill. It takes time to adjust, you want to skip that and stay exactly where you were.
    Not entirely true. Some nodes rely heavily on boosts. Without them, no amount of skill can get you past. So no, not every node that kills you is a lack of skill.
    what nodes can you never beat, ever, no matter how skilled you are, assuming you have the right champs which has generally been an issue throughout the game.
  • Fugitive21Fugitive21 Posts: 221 ★
    Stopped doing them long time ago. Got tired of the spending and having a DEF group of characters and a Attack group of characters.

    Could not see the spending of resources for pillow hand characters that are only good for AI defense in AW.

    Left that alliance and went to one that just does AQ.

  • StevendStottStevendStott Posts: 25 ★
    We are more than likely going to transition into an AQ focused alliance after this season. We are tier 4 contenders and a lot of our members are very unhappy with the new map and nodes. We feel its targeting spenders more than players. Theres still hope of adjustments being made. But if not, we will focus on AQ and still grow.
  • BuddyGuyFriendBuddyGuyFriend Posts: 54 ★
    “They can all be taken down with skill. we just finished war with fairly low deaths. That means they can be taken down easily. What is "fair" though is relative.”

    That’s your personal experience and clearly from the feedback on this thread and the main thread and other players at the top, it’s not a majority opinion. Every comment you’re making reeks of elitism, where I just asked if anyone else was having the same ratio since the changes.

    “it is not a matter of "got really bad overnight" This is the fallacy that you keep telling yourself. it is a matter of things are different now and you need to learn to adapt, or just complain.”

    I literally didn’t say that. Read my response again. I was making the point that a group strong enough to make it through multiple seasons in platinum doesn’t suddenly get horrible overnight. Thereby proving the point that the difficulty is tuned too much in the wrong direction, and the exact opposite of what was communicated to us by the game team before the changes. There’s also a difference between giving feedback on the forum on this to the game team and complaining. I’m speaking for 30 people who all play at this level on our experience. For you to snipe at me yet again and insinuate were just complaining and bad at our skills is unnecessary and not helpful to this conversation.

    “I never took a swipe at your skills, only your logic, any perceived swipe is 100% in your own mind, everything after that is just a strawman.”

    Your first comment was literally saying we didn’t have the skills to do this now. That’s not a straw man, it’s an insult and based on absolutely nothing.

    I’ve shared our experience, it would be lovely to be able to post this on the forum without having someone from the “Get Gud” brigade immediately jumping on us. I asked for others similar experience. If you guys are having no trouble at all and think you’ll be fine when the season starts, awesome. But you can stop jumping on others who don’t feel the same way. And empirically there’s more on that side of this than saying anything like you are.
  • BLEEDlNG_DGEBLEEDlNG_DGE Posts: 324 ★★
    edited June 2019
    Lormif said:

    BLEEDlNG_DGE said:

    Lormif said:

    BuddyGuyFriend said:

    If the current set up and nodes are staying for next season, my platinum 3 rank 57 23million rated alliance is done spending any items at all for war. We already agreed. We went from winning 8 wars in a row before the update to losing the last 6 in a row, and only one war we even made it out of the first section. And to squash any "get good" comments, the opposing team had just as much of a struggle against us those wars too. Before update we were lucky to have more than 4-5 kills on defense before they made it to the last mini boss/boss section - now its double digits and one war had over 30 kills. The difficulty was increased exponentially compared to last season. Most of us have played this for 4 years plus now and this could be the final blow to our enthusiasm for the game as a whole. It's not fun getting absolutely destroyed due to a node rather than skill every single war now and doesn't seem sustainable from a business perspective. After all the issues we've seen with bugs and champs released only to be fixed soon after almost every month this year, to the extremely lackluster and underwhelming Endgame tie in event, to have this changed along with an increase to AQ difficulty just makes us all scratch our heads. Our line chats went from strategy to "well lets ride this out and see if they fix things, if not we're gonna be semi retired and only seriously run map 6 all week in AQ, and war gets our weaker teams and probably slide down to gold one again."

    If that's what Kabam was intending with this rollout it's kind of baffling, but at least to my group and other friends I know who play, every single person has expressed some kind of similar response. I'm interested to see others in the top alliances share their experience so far now that we have over a week running the changes.

    getting killed due to a node is still getting killed due to you lacking skill. It takes time to adjust, you want to skip that and stay exactly where you were.
    Not entirely true. Some nodes rely heavily on boosts. Without them, no amount of skill can get you past. So no, not every node that kills you is a lack of skill.
    what nodes can you never beat, ever, no matter how skilled you are, assuming you have the right champs which has generally been an issue throughout the game.
    In AWs, it could be any node. The simplest nodes with the "right" champ on it can be lethal and require certain boosts to get passed. That's the core of AW... strategy. A 5/65 KM on cornered or Thing on explosive personality at plat level will most likely require some sort of boost. Top tier alliances are made up of the most skilled players in mcoc, with the most impressive rosters at their disposal and yet they run boosts EVERY war & when/if they die to a node, I can assure you it's not from a lack of skill.
  • Dexman1349Dexman1349 Posts: 3,060 ★★★★★
    It also comes down to the ability to change up our attack teams. Most higher-tier alliances have assigned paths, and each of those players have ranked up champs for those paths (or were assigned paths due to the roster they had). With the change in nodes, those assigned paths all went out the window but the players still have the same champs ranked up. Are those champs still effective against the new nodes, or do they have to adjust their teams? The ideal champs for the old maps don't necessarily translate over to the new map.

    Is my roster diverse enough or do I have the ability to rank up new champs quickly enough to make these adjustments? For the vast majority of players, the answer is no. T5B and T2A are not plentiful enough for players to simply plug and play an array of R4+ champs at the drop of a hat. Even my account with over 820k rating and a dozen R4+ champs struggles to meet the utility requirements to make these adjustments.

    I will also add my name to the list of semi-retired players. Used to be in a Gold1/Plat3 ally, didn't like the stress so I dropped down to a 5x5 Gold 2 group. Got sick of AQ so I dropped again to an ally that only runs 1-2 BGs of Map 3 and AW.
    GluteusMaximus said:


    ultimately it just seems more fun building mock-ups of new maps and nodes and even strategizing defenses than actually playing the thing. for me, anyway...

    It seems that's all Kabam actually does. Put together theoretical node and map combos with the theory that the player base has the full use of every champ.

    Kabam: "These buffs would make a champ like Moonknight really useful on defense."
    Also Kabam: "What do you mean you don't have Cyclops ranked up to counter this new Moonknight defender?"
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