War Defender Diversity
Elohim16
Member Posts: 65 ★
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.
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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
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.
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.
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.
The easiest way to calculate it would be:
(150 - Current Diversity) x 25 / 80, then round up the answer.
(Their Diversity - Our Diversity) * 3 / 8.
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.
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.
If only that were true. That's why I posted this. We don't die more.