Yeah to get on point, the issue isn't people exploiting the issue is a system where you're not always trying to win. If the system incentivizes throwing or swapping it's a bad system.
Make “Laddered” brackets of 13 alliances each (progressing in groups of the top 13, then the next 13, etc, etc all the way down thru Gold levels or say down thru WR Tier 8 or such) and play each Season as a ROUND ROBIN TOURNAMENT (12 wars, each against a different ally in your bracket).
And use English Premiere League style of moving ‘xx’ amount of alliances Up/Down based on standings between one season and the next.
Make “Laddered” brackets of 13 alliances each (progressing in groups of the top 13, then the next 13, etc, etc all the way down thru Gold levels or say down thru WR Tier 8 or such) and play each Season as a ROUND ROBIN TOURNAMENT (12 wars, each against a different ally in your bracket).
And use English Premiere League style of moving ‘xx’ amount of alliances Up/Down based on standings between one season and the next.
Elimination tournaments might work. Round Robins won't, because there are thousands of alliances. Since the only way to move up is in between tournaments if the matches are fixed, it would take hundreds of seasons for a low alliance to work their way to the top. That isn't practical.
This maybe controversial and some may not agree but it is about time they start from scratch again with war rating and match making. I can only speak to my little neck of the woods but moving up from gold to plat 4 or plat 4 to plat 3 has become next to impossible. I currently play in a gold 1 alliance that over the last 2 seasons have matched 3 alliances in excess of 45 million over all rating. we are 7-3 in our last 10 wars, 2 of the losses against alliances in the top 15 in aq scoring, and we had to win our last war just to make sure we didn't drop out of gold 1. If we win this war we will finish in the bottom third of gold 1 having gone 8-3 in our last 11. Meanwhile there are alliances half our rank placing in plat facing off against similar alliances as themselves due to prestige factor. IDK, just seems pretty broken to me.
I am not complaining about it, for what I am looking for Gold 1 is fine, just don't think the system functions as a fair representation of which alliances are the best. I think a lot of this has to do with the locked war rating in the off season. In the past you could continue to push so that come next season you were at a higher multiplier. Now, you are locked and you can go nearly perfect an entire season without climbing up a map difficulty.
anyway season is over and we will see what comes next
I guess I should add that we are a 10K prestige alliance sitting at the bottom of gold 1
Make “Laddered” brackets of 13 alliances each (progressing in groups of the top 13, then the next 13, etc, etc all the way down thru Gold levels or say down thru WR Tier 8 or such) and play each Season as a ROUND ROBIN TOURNAMENT (12 wars, each against a different ally in your bracket).
And use English Premiere League style of moving ‘xx’ amount of alliances Up/Down based on standings between one season and the next.
Elimination tournaments might work. Round Robins won't, because there are thousands of alliances. Since the only way to move up is in between tournaments if the matches are fixed, it would take hundreds of seasons for a low alliance to work their way to the top. That isn't practical.
Yes, each new Season (Tournament) would have new placements set. But yep, would have to actually be basically determined by then-current WR Rating, but wanted to toss in at least a minimum amount of Up/Down per 13 team bracket regardless of whether their War Rating would have otherwise kept them in the same bracket.
Such as the bottom 3 or 4 ally’s in one season's 13 ally tournament in the “ultimate top” bracket would be forced to move down a bracket, even if their War Rating would have otherwise dictated that they should have stayed in that top bracket.
If an ally's new War Rating would let them move up or down even further (MANY Tournament Brackets worth) for the next season, then they would still do so (just that at a minimum there would be xx amount that would at least move up/down 1 bracket regardless of WR, just on previous tournament/season results alone).
Kabam, since this season is just about over; it's a perfect time to revisit how you do match making. At no point should there be more than a 30% prestige gap within a tier. The difference between a 10k and 7k alliance is immense. Even the most skilled alliance is not going to beat 10k alliance often enough to maintain a high war rating.
And the 6000+ prestige gap in Gold 1 is plain ridiculous. An alliance fielding all R4 4* for attack and defense is better at war than all the 9k+ alliances sitting in Gold 1 and 2?
You can change the primary criteria back to war rating with possibly a 2000 prestige gap limiter. You will also need to change the +/- to a straight up number like 50 for alliances above 2000 war rating. Because all the lower prestige alliances will be start fighting higher alliances and having +90/-2 result is going to take a long time to lower their war rating. Yes some of these alliances are going to start losing a lot of wars but they've been on the collecting higher tier war rewards for awhile.
Kabam, since this season is just about over; it's a perfect time to revisit how you do match making. At no point should there be more than a 30% prestige gap within a tier. The difference between a 10k and 7k alliance is immense. Even the most skilled alliance is not going to beat 10k alliance often enough to maintain a high war rating.
The great irony here is that the system we have now was prompted by other people claiming that matches of disparate alliance rating were unfair. If only Kabam ignored *everyone* who looked at *anything* besides war rating, we wouldn't be having any of these problems.
The moment you say well, this alliance or that alliance don't "belong" in a particular bracket or war tier, you're just contributing to the problem. Maybe you don't realize this, and maybe I'm incapable of convincing you of that fact, but I'm pretty sure there's lots of other people who remember when matches were done based solely on war rating, and tons of people complained about being matched against alliances with much higher rating, and demanding changes because that was unfair.
Alliance rating doesn't matter. Prestige doesn't matter. The war system should look at war rating, and only war rating, and so should the players. But as long as people keep talking about alliance rating or prestige, Kabam is going to keep fiddling with the system in ways mathematically provably broken. If they used math.
Kabam, since this season is just about over; it's a perfect time to revisit how you do match making. At no point should there be more than a 30% prestige gap within a tier. The difference between a 10k and 7k alliance is immense. Even the most skilled alliance is not going to beat 10k alliance often enough to maintain a high war rating.
The great irony here is that the system we have now was prompted by other people claiming that matches of disparate alliance rating were unfair. If only Kabam ignored *everyone* who looked at *anything* besides war rating, we wouldn't be having any of these problems.
The moment you say well, this alliance or that alliance don't "belong" in a particular bracket or war tier, you're just contributing to the problem. Maybe you don't realize this, and maybe I'm incapable of convincing you of that fact, but I'm pretty sure there's lots of other people who remember when matches were done based solely on war rating, and tons of people complained about being matched against alliances with much higher rating, and demanding changes because that was unfair.
Alliance rating doesn't matter. Prestige doesn't matter. The war system should look at war rating, and only war rating, and so should the players. But as long as people keep talking about alliance rating or prestige, Kabam is going to keep fiddling with the system in ways mathematically provably broken. If they used math.
The old system worked better. Yes there were complaints but in the end imo it worked out better. Now you have alliances that have no place being in gold 1 finishing in plat 3 and alliances that should be in plat 3 struggling to maintain gold 1. It’s honestly a mess in many ways.
I agree that it should only be war rating. It used to be that way but people manipulated the system by tanking during the off season. This is when people complained because at the start of the season they could get harder match ups against alliances that tanked. Tanking has been somewhat addressed by freezing war ratings for tiers 5 and below. And half victory/loss changes for other tiers.
I only put a prestige limiter on match making because that's what Kabam uses now. I Kabam changed it back to strictly war rating. All those 6k prestige alliances in plat are going to only get matches against 9k+ alliances. Then again that's way it should be since their war ratings are probably pretty close.
It used to be that way but people manipulated the system by tanking during the off season.
Could someone elaborate on this? What was the purpose of tanking in the off season? I think WR makes the most sense but this bit here is throwing me because wouldn't tanking your WR just ensure you get less rewards?
I agree that it should only be war rating. It used to be that way but people manipulated the system by tanking during the off season.
But tanking wasn't why they changed it, because the change didn't affect tanking: with war rating still being the primary match criteria, tanking was literally just as effective before as after. The change was made to address the fact that many players were complaining that if a 5 million alliance matches against a 25 million alliance that match is unfair because there's no way a 5 million alliance could beat a 25 million alliance - the assertion you're also making. But if a 5 million alliance and a 25 million alliance have the same war rating, that is a fair match because they should have an equal chance of beating each other. By looking at alliance rating and shifting matches towards more similar alliance ratings the system ironically creates the problem it tries to eliminate, when the problem didn't exist in the first place.
Another player correctly identified the problem when the new system was put into place: he referred to it as a "siloing" problem where the system has an increasingly hard time finding matches for alliances far away from the average alliance rating for any given war rating (unfortunately, I can't find the posts).
When you say a 12 million alliance as no chance of beating a 30 million alliance, you're echoing the statement that was originally used to justify to claim that such matches are unfair. If it is literally impossible for the lower alliance to overcome that discrepancy, then it is in fact an unfair match. But if war ratings were used for matches and alliance rating was ignored, then 12 million rating alliances and 30 million alliances with the same war rating would in fact be fair matches, because those ratings do not determine the strength of the alliance, only war rating does.
To put it another way, you can't say "a 12 can never beat a 30, let's match them." Clearly, that statement causes problems, because here we are. You have to believe that it is possible for a 12 to beat a 30, if the 12 is strong enough, and that therefore matching a 12 to a 30 is fair - or would be, if we eliminated the extra match condition of looking for similar alliance ratings.
My biggest issue is we play 1bg wars in tier 4. We got matched with tier 3 alliances twice, had to play up a tier with their harder nodes, but still only got the tier 4 multiplier and we won both wars pretty easily. We should get tier 3 multiplier for points for those 2 wars since we played up to their nodes. I don't understand how they can get tier 3 multiplier for the exact same war when we get tier 4 multiplier for playing a tier 3 war.
Incidentally, the argument I, and others, made against using alliance rating as a match criteria is that alliance rating is subject to manipulation. It is trivially easy to lower alliance rating: just sell (or don't rank) lower champs or champs you don't use. You can reduce your alliance rating by 50% or more without impacting your effectiveness in AW.
War rating is also subject to manipulation, but it is not as easy to manipulate war rating as it requires changing alliances. Really the only way to change war rating is to win or lose wars, and what people call war rating manipulation (or tanking) is really a side effect of alliance swapping. But you can manipulate alliance rating without having to change alliances at all.
But again: alliance rating manipulation is only manipulation if you believe it doesn't affect the strength of the alliance. If you can lose alliance rating without getting any weaker, that's a potentially unfair advantage the match system could amplify. If you believe lower rating means you are weaker in war and can't beat alliances with much higher rating, then it isn't an unfair advantage to dump rating because it isn't an advantage in the first place.
My biggest issue is we play 1bg wars in tier 4. We got matched with tier 3 alliances twice, had to play up a tier with their harder nodes, but still only got the tier 4 multiplier and we won both wars pretty easily. We should get tier 3 multiplier for points for those 2 wars since we played up to their nodes. I don't understand how they can get tier 3 multiplier for the exact same war when we get tier 4 multiplier for playing a tier 3 war.
That one has been a long standing complaint that comes and goes, and I'm not sure if a consistent explanation has ever been given for this one. But it isn't a direct side effect of the match system, it is a peculiarity of how the game treats matches that cross tier lines.
@DNA3000 I think we are agreeing to the same point but are looking at it differently. Yes it's a fair match if a 12 and 30 fight one another given the same war rating (even if the 12 has little chance of winning). In the old system, if a 12 million alliance got high enough to achieve the same war rating as a 30, they would eventually get matched. This is when the complaints started flying in because people only looked at alliance rating to gauge opponent strength when in actuality it was war rating that got them that match.
Not sure why you think I disagree with you but prestige and alliance rating have no business in the match making calculation. If an smaller alliance is really good at war they should get matches against larger alliances with a similar war rating.
I don't think we do disagree on this point. My original issue, and the one I'm still pointing out, is that your original post attempted to make this case by stating point blank that it was *impossible* for a low alliance rating alliance to show up in the top brackets. So their very presence proves match making is broken. But if we agree that under a match system where only war rating is used it would be fair for low and high alliance rating alliances to match, and it *could* happen that the low alliance would win, then we cannot say with certainty why those low rated alliances show up in your data. It *could* be because they are getting favorable match ups, or it *could* be that they just happen to be good enough to beat alliances of that rating. The data itself doesn't say.
The danger of making the case the way you did is evident in this thread, where other posters agreed with this specific statement of yours, that those alliances could not under any circumstances place that high. It is this notion that you can tell where an alliance should place based on their alliance rating that needs to be dispelled, because if people believe alliance rating means nothing, then they won't keep asking for the match system to take it into account.
Using previous examples, although assuming that Prestige is just as lopsided... A 12m should have to at some point start facing 30m of similar War Rating if they truely deserve to compete to stay in those upper War Rating Tiers.
The fact that a good (or spending) 12m is able to beat all other similar 12m Rating/Prestige allies (without having to face any actually deserving top tier stronger allies), does not necessarily justify their being able to climb up into the range of 30m allies (who by Rating/Prestige have had to face off against other 30m allies of their own similarity).
The very best of the 12m allies will by definition of the apparent current system be able to get into the upper tier, because of the lack of having to face any actually much stronger allies. Yes, they did win more, but only against lower allies, doesn’t make them worthy of a top spot.
It used to be that way but people manipulated the system by tanking during the off season.
Could someone elaborate on this? What was the purpose of tanking in the off season? I think WR makes the most sense but this bit here is throwing me because wouldn't tanking your WR just ensure you get less rewards?
About 6 seasons ago, War Rating would change in off season based on wins and losses. Top alliances would tank their rating, as it would determine the type of teams they would face when the new season opened. Because War Rating was mainly used for matchmaking, the top alliances would face gold and platinum (much low skilled teams for the first few matches). This would allow the top alliance to face lower tiers for quick and cheap wins instead of facing other tougher alliances and much higher end points and ranking when the Season was over.
This lead to a shorter off seasons and the locking of War Rating for tier 5 and up. Which in turn lead these top alliance to switch to shell accounts (having 2 or more alliances that the switch between to do the same thing). The off season rewards do not matter as much as the rewards for high rank at the end of season. It is just a few 4* and 5* shards in most cases.
There are a lot of alliances doing this in order to maximize points. Which is why a rule should be made that any sudden shift in Prestige/AR or % of players in the off season should automatically disqualify the alliance for rewards for 1 season. The loss of the season rewards, would most likely stop shell alliances over night.
I hope that helps explain. The shell accounts may be why Kabam’s matchmaking algorithm is selecting off of a mix of AR and Prestige, which is leading to teams showing up in Platinum without facing much harder alliances. So, there make be a need to evaluate the algorith, how seasons and off season work , and make rules that penalize alliances that have too much of a shift in number of players, Prestige and/or AR.
Let's look at what we want - 1. Everyone wants a fair match-up based on defenders they each face - prestige ensures that. 2. Everyone wants a fair match-up based on other alliances who are playing wars like you - war rating ensures that.
Kabam's solution is ideal - the problem is - Alliances which do not belong in a certain tier and haphazard match-ups. So, what needs to be done is -
Kabam should do exactly what they are doing but add just a couple extra conditions to match-ups. 1. Prestige of the two warring alliances should never have a difference of more than 100 prestige points. 2. War ratings of the two warring alliances should never have a difference of more than 10%.
Now, some alliances won't fit into this perfect category - since prestige matters more when matching for a fair match-up - these few alliances will be forced to play with some alliances that have more than 10% difference in war ratings. These alliances end up getting matched ridiculously easy or ridiculously difficult matches, depending on how you look at it. Say for eg. 9000 prestige with war rating 3000 gets matched up against 8900 prestige alliance with 2500 war rating. The war map of this particular match-up should be of the tier of the lower war rating alliance (2500). They should get season points based on the tier of each map and not the multiplier as is. So in this hypothetical match - either team who wins will get the points based on a tier 4 war as that 2500 war rating belongs in tier 4 (I think - not sure).
This extra measure will solve both problems - 1. No alliance will be able to take advantage of their season multiplier with ridiculously easy matches and hence these fraudulent alliances with ridiculously low prestige, which are sitting in season rankings where they really don't belong, will be put in their place. (I am angry) 2. None of the retired alliances will have to face tougher match-ups, they will just be playing with others who are like them.
I would really like it if someone points out a flaw in my idea - as I feel I can't have just solved this.
It used to be that way but people manipulated the system by tanking during the off season.
Could someone elaborate on this? What was the purpose of tanking in the off season? I think WR makes the most sense but this bit here is throwing me because wouldn't tanking your WR just ensure you get less rewards?
About 6 seasons ago, War Rating would change in off season based on wins and losses. Top alliances would tank their rating, as it would determine the type of teams they would face when the new season opened. Because War Rating was mainly used for matchmaking, the top alliances would face gold and platinum (much low skilled teams for the first few matches). This would allow the top alliance to face lower tiers for quick and cheap wins instead of facing other tougher alliances and much higher end points and ranking when the Season was over.
This lead to a shorter off seasons and the locking of War Rating for tier 5 and up. Which in turn lead these top alliance to switch to shell accounts (having 2 or more alliances that the switch between to do the same thing). The off season rewards do not matter as much as the rewards for high rank at the end of season. It is just a few 4* and 5* shards in most cases.
There are a lot of alliances doing this in order to maximize points. Which is why a rule should be made that any sudden shift in Prestige/AR or % of players in the off season should automatically disqualify the alliance for rewards for 1 season. The loss of the season rewards, would most likely stop shell alliances over night.
I hope that helps explain. The shell accounts may be why Kabam’s matchmaking algorithm is selecting off of a mix of AR and Prestige, which is leading to teams showing up in Platinum without facing much harder alliances. So, there make be a need to evaluate the algorith, how seasons and off season work , and make rules that penalize alliances that have too much of a shift in number of players, Prestige and/or AR.
Disqualifying alliances for large changes is beyond dumb. There are still things like mergers and partial disbands that happen that could have huge effects on war ratings and prestige
Using prestige at all for matches makes no sense. War rating is the only thing that should be getting used but you all cried about tanking until we got this broken mess.
An alliance full of ranked Thor Rags and Phoenix will have much higher prestige than someone with maxed Things, Havoks, Annihilus, etc.... Giving an alliance harder matches based off prestige doesn't even make sense when you take most war defenders and attackers prestige into account.
I don't know when some of you will realize that the more you rabble rabble about something until it gets changed usually winds up with something even worse in its place
Thanks for creating this thread and anylizing the data on this. It really needs to be fixed. It is ridiculous for alliances with vastly less experience and less developed rosters to earn better rewards than experienced alliances who have paid their dues and been playing for a long time simply because they are protected from facing them as a result of their low prestige. They are taking slots in the rankings that should belong to someone else..forcing them down in the rankings as a result. Why should it be possible for an alliance to have a higher war rating and ranking than another alliance that would crush them if they ever matched, simply because they will never match? It's like having separate, unannounced weight divisions in a sport that was never intended to have them. This isn't boxing, it's alliance war:) Please remove prestige from the matching criteria. Thanks.
I had an idea a few seasons back about giving a higher multiplier based on how high the prestige of the alliance you are facing was. I still kind of think that's a decent solution.
If prestige wars are going to be a thing then might as well embrace it BUT give out extra points to those groups that face top tier alliances and less to the groups that are getting constant easy matchups due to prestige. Being a 3k+ rating group beating up on Tier 4-5 alliances and receiving better rewards than groups that have to face Kenob, 4loki, ASR, etc multiple times every season kind of makes no sense. There should be some kind of strength of schedule multiplier using prestige or some other metric.
The season just ended. Kabam, you REALLY need to tell us the truth on how matchmaking is going to work moving forward. It's obvious this season was horrible for people in high prestige alliances. It's also obvious this season was wonderful for the alliances with prestige around 9000. Matching should be by war rating and war rating only! That's how real life works. If you are an 8k prestige alliance with 3000 war rating, guess what? You gotta fight 10.5k prestige alliance with 3000 war rating. The game should read 3000 vs 3000, fair matchup, and that's it! Don't look at any other factors.
Here are some interesting FACTS. My allies prestige is 10,364. We are currently plat 3, #158. Do you think we ever matched vs a sub 10k prestige alliance? Answer is NO. Even though there are hundreds of sub 10k prestige alliances higher up and lower than us in plat 3 with the exact same war rating, we never matched with any of them. I found this to be alarming. Most people deem AQ as a barometer for how good/serious an alliance is. We placed 60 in this last AQ. 7 of our last 10 matchups have been vs alliances that placed 75 or higher in AQ! So even though we are plat 3, we are still matching with the toughest allies out there.
One of my good friends in the game lives in Asia. He was in our ally for 2 years, never wanted to leave but schedule and work, he just had to find another ally closer to his time zone. He went to another alliance with 9000 prestige and they finished Masters this season! Do you want to know how many allies they faced this season over 9300 prestige? ZERO! Please explain how this is fair to the thousands of allies above 9300 prestige!?!?
It's so obvious matchmaking matches by prestige. Get rid of it! And get rid of Siphon.
My guess is this matchmaking system was to cut down on Shelling allies. If you are a 10k prestige alliance with 1500 war rating looking to shell and pound people all season, this system will make it very hard on you. This matchmaking system says "ok 10k prestige ally with 1500 war rating trying to shell, we are going to match you with another 10k ally to combat you shelling and make your matchup hard". And if this is the case, that's AMAZING! I would love for them to keep this system to combat shelling. But once the war rating gets to like 2500 or 2700, turn it off and match just based on war rating. Because when you leave it on, you are being very unfair to the largest allies in the game and probably the ones that give you the most money. Moreover it creates hatred for war. We have 6 people quiting the game because of this alliance war season. That's less money in your pockets Kabam, you can't keep doing this. Please fix it and make it fair, match by war rating only in the plat and master tiers. And I applaud you for combating shelling alliances, great job there.
Please see my post on page 2 where I updated the list to show alliance prestige.
Prestige is a much more closely correlated to alliance strength than alliance rating, but it is still not perfect. The same argument applies. If you say "there's no way an alliance with 30% less prestige will beat a higher rated alliance" then you're saying that matching between those alliances is unfair, and thus you're echoing the people who say those two alliances should never be matched together. But you *want* those alliances to be matched against each other. So you can't say it is impossible for one to beat the other.
You have to believe it is possible, however unlikely, that with sufficient skill an alliance with 20% less prestige could beat an alliance with 20% more prestige when they have equal war rating. If you don't, and Kabam agrees with you, then those alliances will never get matched against each other, which is the very problem you're trying to solve.
The argument you're making is that those lower prestige alliances could not possibly beat comparable war rating alliances so their presence in the top brackets is proof of a match making problem. But I'm telling you that's not what's going to happen. We know what happens when Kabam believes the players when they say alliance X can never fairly beat alliance Y: the match system is designed so they don't face each other. We know this because this is what Kabam did, more than once.
The argument I think you should be making is this: there are lower prestige alliances in the top brackets. For their presence in those brackets to be fair, they should have had to fight through the same set of alliances as all other alliances in that bracket (or at least the same war tier), and if they aren't being matched that way then they have a potentially easier path to the top bracket which is unfair. Furthermore, if they are doing that by manipulating their alliance rating or their prestige or both, then that's a separate unfair advantage.
There's no smoking gun in that argument, because we can't directly tell who's matching against who in the data. But I think that's the only line of thought that ultimately gets to where you want to go: presuming that all alliances with the same war rating are fairly matched against each other, and no other criteria should be used. Using any other criteria means all alliances of the same war rating *don't* match against each other, some only match against small subsets of all the alliances at the same rating, and that's potentially unfair.
Using prestige at all for matches makes no sense. War rating is the only thing that should be getting used but you all cried about tanking until we got this broken mess.
An alliance full of ranked Thor Rags and Phoenix will have much higher prestige than someone with maxed Things, Havoks, Annihilus, etc.... Giving an alliance harder matches based off prestige doesn't even make sense when you take most war defenders and attackers prestige into account.
I don't know when some of you will realize that the more you rabble rabble about something until it gets changed usually winds up with something even worse in its place
To be fair you guys and the like did just tank so that you didn’t get fair matches. I still like the old system better but the crying was much less of an offense as the tanking. If the spirit of competition was at all important
Comments
And use English Premiere League style of moving ‘xx’ amount of alliances Up/Down based on standings between one season and the next.
I am not complaining about it, for what I am looking for Gold 1 is fine, just don't think the system functions as a fair representation of which alliances are the best. I think a lot of this has to do with the locked war rating in the off season. In the past you could continue to push so that come next season you were at a higher multiplier. Now, you are locked and you can go nearly perfect an entire season without climbing up a map difficulty.
anyway season is over and we will see what comes next
I guess I should add that we are a 10K prestige alliance sitting at the bottom of gold 1
Such as the bottom 3 or 4 ally’s in one season's 13 ally tournament in the “ultimate top” bracket would be forced to move down a bracket, even if their War Rating would have otherwise dictated that they should have stayed in that top bracket.
If an ally's new War Rating would let them move up or down even further (MANY Tournament Brackets worth) for the next season, then they would still do so (just that at a minimum there would be xx amount that would at least move up/down 1 bracket regardless of WR, just on previous tournament/season results alone).
And the 6000+ prestige gap in Gold 1 is plain ridiculous. An alliance fielding all R4 4* for attack and defense is better at war than all the 9k+ alliances sitting in Gold 1 and 2?
You can change the primary criteria back to war rating with possibly a 2000 prestige gap limiter. You will also need to change the +/- to a straight up number like 50 for alliances above 2000 war rating. Because all the lower prestige alliances will be start fighting higher alliances and having +90/-2 result is going to take a long time to lower their war rating. Yes some of these alliances are going to start losing a lot of wars but they've been on the collecting higher tier war rewards for awhile.
The moment you say well, this alliance or that alliance don't "belong" in a particular bracket or war tier, you're just contributing to the problem. Maybe you don't realize this, and maybe I'm incapable of convincing you of that fact, but I'm pretty sure there's lots of other people who remember when matches were done based solely on war rating, and tons of people complained about being matched against alliances with much higher rating, and demanding changes because that was unfair.
Alliance rating doesn't matter. Prestige doesn't matter. The war system should look at war rating, and only war rating, and so should the players. But as long as people keep talking about alliance rating or prestige, Kabam is going to keep fiddling with the system in ways mathematically provably broken. If they used math.
I only put a prestige limiter on match making because that's what Kabam uses now. I Kabam changed it back to strictly war rating. All those 6k prestige alliances in plat are going to only get matches against 9k+ alliances. Then again that's way it should be since their war ratings are probably pretty close.
Another player correctly identified the problem when the new system was put into place: he referred to it as a "siloing" problem where the system has an increasingly hard time finding matches for alliances far away from the average alliance rating for any given war rating (unfortunately, I can't find the posts).
When you say a 12 million alliance as no chance of beating a 30 million alliance, you're echoing the statement that was originally used to justify to claim that such matches are unfair. If it is literally impossible for the lower alliance to overcome that discrepancy, then it is in fact an unfair match. But if war ratings were used for matches and alliance rating was ignored, then 12 million rating alliances and 30 million alliances with the same war rating would in fact be fair matches, because those ratings do not determine the strength of the alliance, only war rating does.
To put it another way, you can't say "a 12 can never beat a 30, let's match them." Clearly, that statement causes problems, because here we are. You have to believe that it is possible for a 12 to beat a 30, if the 12 is strong enough, and that therefore matching a 12 to a 30 is fair - or would be, if we eliminated the extra match condition of looking for similar alliance ratings.
War rating is also subject to manipulation, but it is not as easy to manipulate war rating as it requires changing alliances. Really the only way to change war rating is to win or lose wars, and what people call war rating manipulation (or tanking) is really a side effect of alliance swapping. But you can manipulate alliance rating without having to change alliances at all.
But again: alliance rating manipulation is only manipulation if you believe it doesn't affect the strength of the alliance. If you can lose alliance rating without getting any weaker, that's a potentially unfair advantage the match system could amplify. If you believe lower rating means you are weaker in war and can't beat alliances with much higher rating, then it isn't an unfair advantage to dump rating because it isn't an advantage in the first place.
Not sure why you think I disagree with you but prestige and alliance rating have no business in the match making calculation. If an smaller alliance is really good at war they should get matches against larger alliances with a similar war rating.
The danger of making the case the way you did is evident in this thread, where other posters agreed with this specific statement of yours, that those alliances could not under any circumstances place that high. It is this notion that you can tell where an alliance should place based on their alliance rating that needs to be dispelled, because if people believe alliance rating means nothing, then they won't keep asking for the match system to take it into account.
A 12m should have to at some point start facing 30m of similar War Rating if they truely deserve to compete to stay in those upper War Rating Tiers.
The fact that a good (or spending) 12m is able to beat all other similar 12m Rating/Prestige allies (without having to face any actually deserving top tier stronger allies), does not necessarily justify their being able to climb up into the range of 30m allies (who by Rating/Prestige have had to face off against other 30m allies of their own similarity).
The very best of the 12m allies will by definition of the apparent current system be able to get into the upper tier, because of the lack of having to face any actually much stronger allies. Yes, they did win more, but only against lower allies, doesn’t make them worthy of a top spot.
This lead to a shorter off seasons and the locking of War Rating for tier 5 and up. Which in turn lead these top alliance to switch to shell accounts (having 2 or more alliances that the switch between to do the same thing). The off season rewards do not matter as much as the rewards for high rank at the end of season. It is just a few 4* and 5* shards in most cases.
There are a lot of alliances doing this in order to maximize points. Which is why a rule should be made that any sudden shift in Prestige/AR or % of players in the off season should automatically disqualify the alliance for rewards for 1 season. The loss of the season rewards, would most likely stop shell alliances over night.
I hope that helps explain. The shell accounts may be why Kabam’s matchmaking algorithm is selecting off of a mix of AR and Prestige, which is leading to teams showing up in Platinum without facing much harder alliances. So, there make be a need to evaluate the algorith, how seasons and off season work , and make rules that penalize alliances that have too much of a shift in number of players, Prestige and/or AR.
Let's look at what we want -
1. Everyone wants a fair match-up based on defenders they each face - prestige ensures that.
2. Everyone wants a fair match-up based on other alliances who are playing wars like you - war rating ensures that.
Kabam's solution is ideal - the problem is -
Alliances which do not belong in a certain tier and haphazard match-ups.
So, what needs to be done is -
Kabam should do exactly what they are doing but add just a couple extra conditions to match-ups.
1. Prestige of the two warring alliances should never have a difference of more than 100 prestige points.
2. War ratings of the two warring alliances should never have a difference of more than 10%.
Now, some alliances won't fit into this perfect category - since prestige matters more when matching for a fair match-up - these few alliances will be forced to play with some alliances that have more than 10% difference in war ratings.
These alliances end up getting matched ridiculously easy or ridiculously difficult matches, depending on how you look at it.
Say for eg. 9000 prestige with war rating 3000 gets matched up against 8900 prestige alliance with 2500 war rating.
The war map of this particular match-up should be of the tier of the lower war rating alliance (2500).
They should get season points based on the tier of each map and not the multiplier as is.
So in this hypothetical match - either team who wins will get the points based on a tier 4 war as that 2500 war rating belongs in tier 4 (I think - not sure).
This extra measure will solve both problems -
1. No alliance will be able to take advantage of their season multiplier with ridiculously easy matches and hence these fraudulent alliances with ridiculously low prestige, which are sitting in season rankings where they really don't belong, will be put in their place. (I am angry)
2. None of the retired alliances will have to face tougher match-ups, they will just be playing with others who are like them.
I would really like it if someone points out a flaw in my idea - as I feel I can't have just solved this.
An alliance full of ranked Thor Rags and Phoenix will have much higher prestige than someone with maxed Things, Havoks, Annihilus, etc.... Giving an alliance harder matches based off prestige doesn't even make sense when you take most war defenders and attackers prestige into account.
I don't know when some of you will realize that the more you rabble rabble about something until it gets changed usually winds up with something even worse in its place
If prestige wars are going to be a thing then might as well embrace it BUT give out extra points to those groups that face top tier alliances and less to the groups that are getting constant easy matchups due to prestige. Being a 3k+ rating group beating up on Tier 4-5 alliances and receiving better rewards than groups that have to face Kenob, 4loki, ASR, etc multiple times every season kind of makes no sense. There should be some kind of strength of schedule multiplier using prestige or some other metric.
Here are some interesting FACTS. My allies prestige is 10,364. We are currently plat 3, #158. Do you think we ever matched vs a sub 10k prestige alliance? Answer is NO. Even though there are hundreds of sub 10k prestige alliances higher up and lower than us in plat 3 with the exact same war rating, we never matched with any of them. I found this to be alarming. Most people deem AQ as a barometer for how good/serious an alliance is. We placed 60 in this last AQ. 7 of our last 10 matchups have been vs alliances that placed 75 or higher in AQ! So even though we are plat 3, we are still matching with the toughest allies out there.
One of my good friends in the game lives in Asia. He was in our ally for 2 years, never wanted to leave but schedule and work, he just had to find another ally closer to his time zone. He went to another alliance with 9000 prestige and they finished Masters this season! Do you want to know how many allies they faced this season over 9300 prestige? ZERO! Please explain how this is fair to the thousands of allies above 9300 prestige!?!?
It's so obvious matchmaking matches by prestige. Get rid of it! And get rid of Siphon.
You have to believe it is possible, however unlikely, that with sufficient skill an alliance with 20% less prestige could beat an alliance with 20% more prestige when they have equal war rating. If you don't, and Kabam agrees with you, then those alliances will never get matched against each other, which is the very problem you're trying to solve.
The argument you're making is that those lower prestige alliances could not possibly beat comparable war rating alliances so their presence in the top brackets is proof of a match making problem. But I'm telling you that's not what's going to happen. We know what happens when Kabam believes the players when they say alliance X can never fairly beat alliance Y: the match system is designed so they don't face each other. We know this because this is what Kabam did, more than once.
The argument I think you should be making is this: there are lower prestige alliances in the top brackets. For their presence in those brackets to be fair, they should have had to fight through the same set of alliances as all other alliances in that bracket (or at least the same war tier), and if they aren't being matched that way then they have a potentially easier path to the top bracket which is unfair. Furthermore, if they are doing that by manipulating their alliance rating or their prestige or both, then that's a separate unfair advantage.
There's no smoking gun in that argument, because we can't directly tell who's matching against who in the data. But I think that's the only line of thought that ultimately gets to where you want to go: presuming that all alliances with the same war rating are fairly matched against each other, and no other criteria should be used. Using any other criteria means all alliances of the same war rating *don't* match against each other, some only match against small subsets of all the alliances at the same rating, and that's potentially unfair.