War Defender Diversity

War should be about alliances putting their best fighters in the fray. In the event of a tie, defender diversity should break it, and understandably so. Losing to an opponent showcasing a weaker squad AND displaying a weaker performance in attack is absolutely ridiculous.

Comments

Drenlin

Would you like some cheese with that whine

Lvernon15

Would you like to face only the 10 absolute worst defenders every war and spend triple the resources you do now? No? Didn’t think so

Owl_0wl

diversity makes alliances communicate which is beneficial for the game. No diversity equals less communication amongst and the same boring matchups all the time.
Plus it works in Kabam's favor as if for example there were just a ton of annihilus', awakened domino's, awakened korgs etc then we would all get used to fighting them and when kabam use them for final bosses and problem fights in event quests and story mode then we would all breeze through

Crazy_Jamie

War should be about alliances putting their best fighters in the fray. In the event of a tie, defender diversity should break it, and understandably so. Losing to an opponent showcasing a weaker squad AND displaying a weaker performance in attack is absolutely ridiculous.

It’s not at all ridiculous. If they’re showcasing a weaker squad, you should be able to gain enough extra attack bonus to offset the increased diversity. If you don’t, you’re not as good as they are.

The diversity system works fine in my view. It adds a layer of strategy which means that it isn’t just those who have the best champs on defense that win. It’s about judging when it’s best to have multiple strong champs and when it’s best to bring weaker ones because the increased diversity score is more valuable than a stronger champ. It also encourages people to think about which champs work well on which nodes, so you can put up a strong defense as well as gain diversity, and rewards organisation and communication. But it doesn’t do it so much that it is the defining feature of wars. It only has influence when wars are close in terms of attack bonus and when both sides have fully cleared the map(s). In effect, it is the tiebreaker, but one that alliances have to choose to invest in or not as a tactical and organisational choice. It works far better than the system you’re proposing.

Elohim16

Would you like to face only the 10 absolute worst defenders every war and spend triple the resources you do now? No? Didn’t think so

Of course I would, but I'd consider it actually pushing me to hone my abilities against certain champs. I don't usually opt to waste resources over skill enhancements.

Elohim16

War should be about alliances putting their best fighters in the fray. In the event of a tie, defender diversity should break it, and understandably so. Losing to an opponent showcasing a weaker squad AND displaying a weaker performance in attack is absolutely ridiculous.
It’s not at all ridiculous. If they’re showcasing a weaker squad, you should be able to gain enough extra attack bonus to offset the increased diversity. If you don’t, you’re not as good as they are.

The diversity system works fine in my view. It adds a layer of strategy which means that it isn’t just those who have the best champs on defense that win. It’s about judging when it’s best to have multiple strong champs and when it’s best to bring weaker ones because the increased diversity score is more valuable than a stronger champ. It also encourages people to think about which champs work well on which nodes, so you can put up a strong defense as well as gain diversity, and rewards organisation and communication. But it doesn’t do it so much that it is the defining feature of wars. It only has influence when wars are close in terms of attack bonus and when both sides have fully cleared the map(s). In effect, it is the tiebreaker, but one that alliances have to choose to invest in or not as a tactical and organisational choice. It works far better than the system you’re proposing.

I really do understand that argument, but it doesn't change my view. You're basically saying that alliances with larger rosters should win if their performances are poorer, which is what my alliance sees happening more times than not. It seems that everyone will respond to this based on their experiences, which is fine. But going head to head, bringing your best to beat the best seems more like a war to me. And I'd wager that when alliances fighting the same champs over and over start to figure those champs out, it would force opponents to increase their diversity out of necessity. Now that's war.

Elohim16

diversity makes alliances communicate which is beneficial for the game. No diversity equals less communication amongst and the same boring matchups all the time.
Plus it works in Kabam's favor as if for example there were just a ton of annihilus', awakened domino's, awakened korgs etc then we would all get used to fighting them and when kabam use them for final bosses and problem fights in event quests and story mode then we would all breeze through

If alliances fought the same champs over and over, diversity would come into play out of necessity, once we all figured out how to beat the "biggest, baddest defenders." And Kabam uses crazy nodes to cover themselves, so I doubt they'd lose much there. If they wanted to, Kamala could easily be made into the absolute worse boss any of us has ever faced.

Elohim16

Would you like some cheese with that whine

LOL No. Because this is Michelob Ultra, all day long.

Thecurler

There are enough good defenders to cover the nodes that get kills. Doesn’t really matter what defender you place if it’s an easy node.

Elohim16

There are enough good defenders to cover the nodes that get kills. Doesn’t really matter what defender you place if it’s an easy node.

True. And that fact intensifies my questioning the importance of diversity, other than breaking an actual tie.

unknown

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Elohim16

You must have not been here when AWD was based on the same 10 champs.

I remember one time we had 10 NCs in a BG, and they got over 30 kills. They wiped out an entire BG.

Correction: They wiped out an entire BG that couldn't handle Nightcrawler. Personally, I'd love to fight a slew of champs that I've figured out. Learning to defeat a champ is part of the game, at least for how I play it.

Lvernon15

You must have not been here when AWD was based on the same 10 champs.

I remember one time we had 10 NCs in a BG, and they got over 30 kills. They wiped out an entire BG.
Correction: They wiped out an entire BG that couldn't handle Nightcrawler. Personally, I'd love to fight a slew of champs that I've figured out. Learning to defeat a champ is part of the game, at least for how I play it.

Correction, they wiped out a bg who didn’t have perfect night crawler counters which there weren’t many of back then and who weren’t willing to use their biggest boosts on a few shards

Elohim16

You must have not been here when AWD was based on the same 10 champs.

I remember one time we had 10 NCs in a BG, and they got over 30 kills. They wiped out an entire BG.
Correction: They wiped out an entire BG that couldn't handle Nightcrawler. Personally, I'd love to fight a slew of champs that I've figured out. Learning to defeat a champ is part of the game, at least for how I play it.
Correction, they wiped out a bg who didn’t have perfect night crawler counters which there weren’t many of back then and who weren’t willing to use their biggest boosts on a few shards

I'm not quite sure what a "Nightcrawler counter" is, so I'll give you that. But I learned that Nightcrawler is much easier to beat when you remove the idea of landing a 3 or more hit combo. I fight Nightcrawler with patience. Perhaps there wasn't much patience back then either.

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Crazy_Jamie

I really do understand that argument, but it doesn't change my view. You're basically saying that alliances with larger rosters should win if their performances are poorer, which is what my alliance sees happening more times than no.

I don’t think you do understand the argument, because you’ve missed the point. If an opposing alliance gets lower attack bonus but their higher diversity makes up for that and they win, they have not performed poorer. They have won the strategic battle and out thought you by prioritising diversity over nodes that don’t get kills, whereas you have wasted diversity on nodes that don’t get enough kills.

Your alliance isn’t being hard done by here. Either you need to improve in attack so that you’re not dying as much, or you need to diversify on nodes that aren’t getting kills to boost your diversity whilst keeping your score consistent otherwise, which will win you more wars. And you don’t need a large roster to do that; practically everyone outside of the very lowest ranked alliances has enough champs to manage diversity. It’s just a matter for each alliance to judge how much they need it and where the balance is. You’re losing at the moment because you’re getting that balance wrong against better organised alliances. The answer is to get your own house in order to win those wars that you’re current losing, not to come onto the forums and moan about a mechanic solely because you can’t manage it properly.

Lovejoy72

I really don’t want to go back to a place where my entire alliance has to invest in ranking up Korgs, Annihilus, And other champs of dubious questing value just put them on D. I vastly prefer placing a few key defenders and then whatever other champ no one else used that I don’t really need right now.

DNA3000

And I'd wager that when alliances fighting the same champs over and over start to figure those champs out, it would force opponents to increase their diversity out of necessity. Now that's war.

You would lose that bet. We had alliance wars for a long time before defender diversity was introduced; long enough to know this statement is basically false.

Without defender diversity, there is no reason to place anything besides the absolute toughest defenders, because even if the players learn how to defeat them there are no other alternatives that generate more kills on average. War was basically an all or nothing affair involving trying to place strategic roadblocks, and seeing if your opponent knew how to blast through them (or spend their way past them). And that created a situation in which the winner wasn't the "better" alliance it was the alliance that just happened to get past a particular road block slightly better.

This isn't a guess, this is history. Anyone who was around and fighting competitive wars pre 14.0 knows the defensive placement meta was fairly locked into stone, and it only changed when especially nasty new defenders were introduced into the game.

Wars were changed to shake that up between 14.0 and 16.1. The current system of defender diversity is a compromise that most players were willing to accept between unlimited defender kill static placement wars and pure diversity scoring. The current defender diversity system isn't just about diversity points, it is about a strategic decision: do you place a duplicate defender that will cost you 30 points but may gain you points by reducing the opponent attack bonus, or do you place a diverse defender and take the guaranteed 30 points and (possibly) forgo most of your chances at reducing attack bonus on that node. That choice is imperfect, but it is a reasonable strategic choice that most players accept as a skill-based choice. You're gambling on the skill of the opponent: if you think they can kill the node without dying you might as well place diverse: if you think they might not kill the node without dying you should consider placing what will get kills, because a single kill is worth more than diversity.

This brings skill into the equation, and that makes it something most alliance war players can live with. The old alternative was what you describe as "alliances with larger rosters should win if their performances are poorer" because the alliance with more of the top defenders (or the right defenders for the right nodes) would tend to win regardless of their own attack performance. You could die way more often on attack if you had one single defender that would roadblock the opponent on a node that they didn't have. That's equally a case of an alliance winning on the basis of large roster, and not actual attack skill.

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DarkMalachi2

Does anyone know how much greater your attack bonus should be, if your diversity is at its lowest while your opponent's diversity is at its max?

xNig

Does anyone know how much greater your attack bonus should be, if your diversity is at its lowest while your opponent's diversity is at its max?

There’s no “lowest” diversity (theoretically there is, which is 5 x 3 = 15, but highly highly unlikely).

The easiest way to calculate it would be:
(150 - Current Diversity) x 25 / 80, then round up the answer.

DNA3000

Does anyone know how much greater your attack bonus should be, if your diversity is at its lowest while your opponent's diversity is at its max?
There’s no “lowest” diversity (theoretically there is, which is 5 x 3 = 15, but highly highly unlikely).

The easiest way to calculate it would be:
(150 - Current Diversity) x 25 / 80, then round up the answer.

It is 30 points per diversity placement. So the correct way to calculate would be:

(Their Diversity - Our Diversity) * 3 / 8.

ECOMA

Would you like to face only the 10 absolute worst defenders every war and spend triple the resources you do now? No? Didn’t think so

I'd like the game to be skill based yes.

DNA3000

Would you like to face only the 10 absolute worst defenders every war and spend triple the resources you do now? No? Didn’t think so
I'd like the game to be skill based yes.

Everyone says that, as long as they get to pick the skills.

unknown

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Elohim16

War should be about alliances putting their best fighters in the fray. In the event of a tie, defender diversity should break it, and understandably so. Losing to an opponent showcasing a weaker squad AND displaying a weaker performance in attack is absolutely ridiculous.
fun numbers:
1 attack bonus = 80pts
1 defender diversity bonus= 30pts

that means: 3 kills = +8 diverse defenders

if your "best" defenders or your "best" offensive showing can't offset that, then they weren't all that weaker to begin with, were they?

I really do understand the arguments/rationales. And I still disagree. Let’s reverse everything, saying that an alliance opponent used nothing but champs considered to be the weakest in the game, but they never used the same champ more than once. Then my alliance took it further and repeatedly used the five absolute weakest champs in the game. Do we get an advantage in doing so? Of course not.
It’s like arguing why golfers with sufficient handicaps should be able to beat Tiger Woods in a Major. Or a boxer wearing two pound gloves can be declared the winner when scoring fewer points in a bout. Or a tennis player can beat Roger Federer by winning two games to Federer’s six because of using a wooden racket. I understand the thinking, and I still say a victory goes to the victor. Not the one who came close to winning. In the event of a tie, I’m good with Federer losing the set because his opponent used a wooden racket. I’m good with a boxer losing if the points are tied, but one boxer wore heavier gloves. And if a guy who never parred a golf course is tied with the top of a leaderboard, I say give him the win.
Just let alliances go at each other, however they want. Diversity should be tie breakers.

Demonzfyre

War should be about alliances putting their best fighters in the fray. In the event of a tie, defender diversity should break it, and understandably so. Losing to an opponent showcasing a weaker squad AND displaying a weaker performance in attack is absolutely ridiculous.

If you lose to a "Weaker" alliance, is it really them who is weaker, or yourself? Losing is 100% on you and your alliance. Don't ask to change the rules because you can't win with the current ones. Get better, become more diverse and stop dying as much.

Demonzfyre

War should be about alliances putting their best fighters in the fray. In the event of a tie, defender diversity should break it, and understandably so. Losing to an opponent showcasing a weaker squad AND displaying a weaker performance in attack is absolutely ridiculous.
fun numbers:
1 attack bonus = 80pts
1 defender diversity bonus= 30pts

that means: 3 kills = +8 diverse defenders

if your "best" defenders or your "best" offensive showing can't offset that, then they weren't all that weaker to begin with, were they?
I really do understand the arguments/rationales. And I still disagree. Let’s reverse everything, saying that an alliance opponent used nothing but champs considered to be the weakest in the game, but they never used the same champ more than once. Then my alliance took it further and repeatedly used the five absolute weakest champs in the game. Do we get an advantage in doing so? Of course not.
It’s like arguing why golfers with sufficient handicaps should be able to beat Tiger Woods in a Major. Or a boxer wearing two pound gloves can be declared the winner when scoring fewer points in a bout. Or a tennis player can beat Roger Federer by winning two games to Federer’s six because of using a wooden racket. I understand the thinking, and I still say a victory goes to the victor. Not the one who came close to winning. In the event of a tie, I’m good with Federer losing the set because his opponent used a wooden racket. I’m good with a boxer losing if the points are tied, but one boxer wore heavier gloves. And if a guy who never parred a golf course is tied with the top of a leaderboard, I say give him the win.
Just let alliances go at each other, however they want. Diversity should be tie breakers.

Diversity is one of the scored criteria that prevents ties from even happening in the first place as are the rest of the scored criteria. They don't want a large amount of ties from happening, thats why there are 5 categories that score points.

Kabam almost go rid of diversity a while back. The community made them change their mind because people ranked champs for war diversity. If they didn't change it then, they sure won't change it now. Like I said before, don't die more than the other team and there won't be a reason for diversity to matter.

Elohim16

Like I said before, don't die more than the other team and there won't be a reason for diversity to matter.

If only that were true. That's why I posted this. We don't die more.

TyEdge

Here’s the problem, which would be your word and not mine - you’re probably at a low enough level that few defenders are maxed and nodes aren’t strong. Attackers typically outrank defenders, and at lower tiers, nodes aren’t strong enough to compensate. They also don’t feature node combinations that make the “tough” defenders truly tough. A Thing on node 1 with no meaningful benefit will die to a comparable attacker even with mistakes in the fight. That’s true for 40-45 of the 55 nodes on the map. Those nodes should all be filled with diverse placements no matter what. If your group is deep enough to diversify the rest, it should. The difference between facing defenders 1-5 in difficulty and placing #1 5 times is negligible, so take the points and diversify.