@Kabam Miike can we ask who you (meaning the decision maker) spoke to in restructuring this node and what feedback you used to come to this decision? Wondering if you all understood the overwhelming response to this node made many either stop or want to stop AW? I believe Kabam’s intent is to make things fun and challenging and want to make sure you all are truly understanding the taste this is leaving. Can we get clarity into your decision and why?
The decisions were made on a number of factors, including the feedback in this thread and other areas of the Community. We agreed that it's too hard to work around, and more punishing in higher tiers (the stack limit was 5 and 4 in the highest tiers).
This is still meant to be a challenge and change up what Champions you choose to bring into War, as Defense Tactics have always meant to do. Alliance War is competitive and is not meant to be easy.
TL:DR I dont recall it being able to stack above 3 in any tier, only difference being 35% per stack in t4 and 5 and 45% in tier 3 or above... at 3 stacks that's 135% power in 15 seconds... so 4 bars of power every 15 seconds... now lets say you get 3 crits straight away, congrats you now have an opponent that will gain 3 bars in around 11 seconds unless you can stun them, not even factoring in things like mystic dispersion and other factors (200% power gain/ 50% enhanced power effects etc)
I used to enjoy seeing people bring unique attackers to war... i myself used to bring elsa and wasp, both of these champs are totally unusable on flow due to high crit chance and no power control! All you've done is make this node passable on stun immune... thats it!
If this node must stay, it should only stack once... or at the very least needs a big reduction to the % per stack... maybe 15% and 20% instead of 35% and 45% ... its ridiculous and HEAVILY limits the champs you can use in attack phase... and if you don't have them... you're out of luck!
I feel the whole defence tactic idea itself needs a rework... why not have nodes that make fights more challenging without limiting the counters....
Opponents gain 50% damage during special attacks Opponents gains 50% passive fury when either champ is in the corner Opponents gain 20% armor everytime they're stunned but an intercept removes all stacks
Just a bit of constructive feedback! This change to flow affects barely nothing!
That is fair and constructive feedback! I'll make sure it's passed on to the team. We are not going to change this Node again until you guys have had time to actually experience it and we can gather data on it. But if we find it's still too punishing, we will change it again.
I completely understand that data collection takes time. However, will the data from Off Season be enough? Or will we have to run an entire Season again before any further changes are considered? (provided they're needed) Mind you this is hypothetically speaking. My crew falls into the general consensus when it comes to our distaste for Flow DT.
My greatest concern is not whether the change was enough to make it manageable. No. My concern is, was the change enough to put it on PAR with the other DTs difficulty wise? The reason I make mention of this is, will the change be enough dissuade Alliances from sticking to Flow over the rest of the DTs?
So far, it hasn't from what I've seen over the last 3 wars of the Off Season. The DT itself has become a bit more manageable, but that doesn't fix the problem of it being more effective than the rest. Theoretically, the DTs should be on par with eachother, that way it's not Siphon Wars, Flow Wars, Crush Wars, Dodge Wars, or Bulwark Wars. It's Alliance Wars with Defense Tactics. Note the plural of Tactics. Not Defense Tactic Flow.
@Kabam Miike can we ask who you (meaning the decision maker) spoke to in restructuring this node and what feedback you used to come to this decision? Wondering if you all understood the overwhelming response to this node made many either stop or want to stop AW? I believe Kabam’s intent is to make things fun and challenging and want to make sure you all are truly understanding the taste this is leaving. Can we get clarity into your decision and why?
The decisions were made on a number of factors, including the feedback in this thread and other areas of the Community. We agreed that it's too hard to work around, and more punishing in higher tiers (the stack limit was 5 and 4 in the highest tiers).
This is still meant to be a challenge and change up what Champions you choose to bring into War, as Defense Tactics have always meant to do. Alliance War is competitive and is not meant to be easy.
TL:DR I dont recall it being able to stack above 3 in any tier, only difference being 35% per stack in t4 and 5 and 45% in tier 3 or above... at 3 stacks that's 135% power in 15 seconds... so 4 bars of power every 15 seconds... now lets say you get 3 crits straight away, congrats you now have an opponent that will gain 3 bars in around 11 seconds unless you can stun them, not even factoring in things like mystic dispersion and other factors (200% power gain/ 50% enhanced power effects etc)
I used to enjoy seeing people bring unique attackers to war... i myself used to bring elsa and wasp, both of these champs are totally unusable on flow due to high crit chance and no power control! All you've done is make this node passable on stun immune... thats it!
If this node must stay, it should only stack once... or at the very least needs a big reduction to the % per stack... maybe 15% and 20% instead of 35% and 45% ... its ridiculous and HEAVILY limits the champs you can use in attack phase... and if you don't have them... you're out of luck!
I feel the whole defence tactic idea itself needs a rework... why not have nodes that make fights more challenging without limiting the counters....
Opponents gain 50% damage during special attacks Opponents gains 50% passive fury when either champ is in the corner Opponents gain 20% armor everytime they're stunned but an intercept removes all stacks
Just a bit of constructive feedback! This change to flow affects barely nothing!
That is fair and constructive feedback! I'll make sure it's passed on to the team. We are not going to change this Node again until you guys have had time to actually experience it and we can gather data on it. But if we find it's still too punishing, we will change it again.
Can you bring to the team the idea of possibly adding a filter so alliances can choose to fight with another defense tactic team or no tactic at all? Or similar to AQ, water down the effectiveness to the tactics if you use it more than once an AW cycle.
I’m sure it’s more complex than I’m suggesting, but losing ally mates because you guys want to “challenge” us with this is infuriating. It’s flow wars now, read the room a bit longer please
That's an interesting idea. I will definitely raise that to the team (Watering down the effectiveness if used multiple times).
Now THIS, this is something I'd love to see in play. However, considering the ability to choose per BG, I would assume that it would work the same as the Modifiers per BG. So theoretically, across 3 wars, you'd have the ability to run 1 particular DT 3× acorss 3 days in 3 different BGs. So Day 1, BG1 runs X DT, Day 2 BG2, and Day 3 BG3. BG1 would have to run Y and Z on days 2 and 3, and so on. While this could potentially lead to at least 1 BG dealing with Flow per war, it ultimately would be better than 3 wars with 3 BGs loaded with Flow.
Knowing the general timeline that it takes for changes to occur in this game from past events, I wouldn't expect the above suggestion being brought to the team by Miike to occur this Season. However, I do feel (and would wager others feel this as well) that Flow needs another tweak before Season starts. It's pretty evident that it's still the dominate Defense Tactic and that doesn't bode well for a diverse and dynamic AW experience. It becomes monotonous, and droning. It takes the fun out of what used to be one of my favorite game modes.
I know that many have stated that AW as a whole needs an overhaul. A rework top to bottom, bow to stern. I'm starting to agree with this notion and it's becoming hard not to want such. Again, knowing the time it takes (especially these days) to make a major change such as this, I wouldn't expect it to occur until at the earliest, end of the year. So hopefully sometime this year a notable change in AW occurs.
Maybe not a full rework, but something that brings value and desirability back to Alliance Wars as a whole. Players that I've known for years now are getting tired of it all. It's sad because there's so much room for potential and growth in CoC. AW is just 1 aspect causing this (and will remain the focal point of this message). I implore Kabam to keep their ears and minds open when it comes to sound and logical feedback. The best place to start is balancing the Defense Tactics out and making them as equally useful as humanly possible.
@Kabam Miike can we ask who you (meaning the decision maker) spoke to in restructuring this node and what feedback you used to come to this decision? Wondering if you all understood the overwhelming response to this node made many either stop or want to stop AW? I believe Kabam’s intent is to make things fun and challenging and want to make sure you all are truly understanding the taste this is leaving. Can we get clarity into your decision and why?
The decisions were made on a number of factors, including the feedback in this thread and other areas of the Community. We agreed that it's too hard to work around, and more punishing in higher tiers (the stack limit was 5 and 4 in the highest tiers).
This is still meant to be a challenge and change up what Champions you choose to bring into War, as Defense Tactics have always meant to do. Alliance War is competitive and is not meant to be easy.
TL:DR I dont recall it being able to stack above 3 in any tier, only difference being 35% per stack in t4 and 5 and 45% in tier 3 or above... at 3 stacks that's 135% power in 15 seconds... so 4 bars of power every 15 seconds... now lets say you get 3 crits straight away, congrats you now have an opponent that will gain 3 bars in around 11 seconds unless you can stun them, not even factoring in things like mystic dispersion and other factors (200% power gain/ 50% enhanced power effects etc)
I used to enjoy seeing people bring unique attackers to war... i myself used to bring elsa and wasp, both of these champs are totally unusable on flow due to high crit chance and no power control! All you've done is make this node passable on stun immune... thats it!
If this node must stay, it should only stack once... or at the very least needs a big reduction to the % per stack... maybe 15% and 20% instead of 35% and 45% ... its ridiculous and HEAVILY limits the champs you can use in attack phase... and if you don't have them... you're out of luck!
I feel the whole defence tactic idea itself needs a rework... why not have nodes that make fights more challenging without limiting the counters....
Opponents gain 50% damage during special attacks Opponents gains 50% passive fury when either champ is in the corner Opponents gain 20% armor everytime they're stunned but an intercept removes all stacks
Just a bit of constructive feedback! This change to flow affects barely nothing!
That is fair and constructive feedback! I'll make sure it's passed on to the team. We are not going to change this Node again until you guys have had time to actually experience it and we can gather data on it. But if we find it's still too punishing, we will change it again.
I completely understand that data collection takes time. However, will the data from Off Season be enough? Or will we have to run an entire Season again before any further changes are considered? (provided they're needed) Mind you this is hypothetically speaking. My crew falls into the general consensus when it comes to our distaste for Flow DT.
My greatest concern is not whether the change was enough to make it manageable. No. My concern is, was the change enough to put it on PAR with the other DTs difficulty wise? The reason I make mention of this is, will the change be enough dissuade Alliances from sticking to Flow over the rest of the DTs?
So far, it hasn't from what I've seen over the last 3 wars of the Off Season. The DT itself has become a bit more manageable, but that doesn't fix the problem of it being more effective than the rest. Theoretically, the DTs should be on par with eachother, that way it's not Siphon Wars, Flow Wars, Crush Wars, Dodge Wars, or Bulwark Wars. It's Alliance Wars with Defense Tactics. Note the plural of Tactics. Not Defense Tactic Flow.
@Kabam Miike can we ask who you (meaning the decision maker) spoke to in restructuring this node and what feedback you used to come to this decision? Wondering if you all understood the overwhelming response to this node made many either stop or want to stop AW? I believe Kabam’s intent is to make things fun and challenging and want to make sure you all are truly understanding the taste this is leaving. Can we get clarity into your decision and why?
The decisions were made on a number of factors, including the feedback in this thread and other areas of the Community. We agreed that it's too hard to work around, and more punishing in higher tiers (the stack limit was 5 and 4 in the highest tiers).
This is still meant to be a challenge and change up what Champions you choose to bring into War, as Defense Tactics have always meant to do. Alliance War is competitive and is not meant to be easy.
TL:DR I dont recall it being able to stack above 3 in any tier, only difference being 35% per stack in t4 and 5 and 45% in tier 3 or above... at 3 stacks that's 135% power in 15 seconds... so 4 bars of power every 15 seconds... now lets say you get 3 crits straight away, congrats you now have an opponent that will gain 3 bars in around 11 seconds unless you can stun them, not even factoring in things like mystic dispersion and other factors (200% power gain/ 50% enhanced power effects etc)
I used to enjoy seeing people bring unique attackers to war... i myself used to bring elsa and wasp, both of these champs are totally unusable on flow due to high crit chance and no power control! All you've done is make this node passable on stun immune... thats it!
If this node must stay, it should only stack once... or at the very least needs a big reduction to the % per stack... maybe 15% and 20% instead of 35% and 45% ... its ridiculous and HEAVILY limits the champs you can use in attack phase... and if you don't have them... you're out of luck!
I feel the whole defence tactic idea itself needs a rework... why not have nodes that make fights more challenging without limiting the counters....
Opponents gain 50% damage during special attacks Opponents gains 50% passive fury when either champ is in the corner Opponents gain 20% armor everytime they're stunned but an intercept removes all stacks
Just a bit of constructive feedback! This change to flow affects barely nothing!
That is fair and constructive feedback! I'll make sure it's passed on to the team. We are not going to change this Node again until you guys have had time to actually experience it and we can gather data on it. But if we find it's still too punishing, we will change it again.
Can you bring to the team the idea of possibly adding a filter so alliances can choose to fight with another defense tactic team or no tactic at all? Or similar to AQ, water down the effectiveness to the tactics if you use it more than once an AW cycle.
I’m sure it’s more complex than I’m suggesting, but losing ally mates because you guys want to “challenge” us with this is infuriating. It’s flow wars now, read the room a bit longer please
That's an interesting idea. I will definitely raise that to the team (Watering down the effectiveness if used multiple times).
Now THIS, this is something I'd love to see in play. However, considering the ability to choose per BG, I would assume that it would work the same as the Modifiers per BG. So theoretically, across 3 wars, you'd have the ability to run 1 particular DT 3× acorss 3 days in 3 different BGs. So Day 1, BG1 runs X DT, Day 2 BG2, and Day 3 BG3. BG1 would have to run Y and Z on days 2 and 3, and so on. While this could potentially lead to at least 1 BG dealing with Flow per war, it ultimately would be better than 3 wars with 3 BGs loaded with Flow.
Knowing the general timeline that it takes for changes to occur in this game from past events, I wouldn't expect the above suggestion being brought to the team by Miike to occur this Season. However, I do feel (and would wager others feel this as well) that Flow needs another tweak before Season starts. It's pretty evident that it's still the dominate Defense Tactic and that doesn't bode well for a diverse and dynamic AW experience. It becomes monotonous, and droning. It takes the fun out of what used to be one of my favorite game modes.
I know that many have stated that AW as a whole needs an overhaul. A rework top to bottom, bow to stern. I'm starting to agree with this notion and it's becoming hard not to want such. Again, knowing the time it takes (especially these days) to make a major change such as this, I wouldn't expect it to occur until at the earliest, end of the year. So hopefully sometime this year a notable change in AW occurs.
Maybe not a full rework, but something that brings value and desirability back to Alliance Wars as a whole. Players that I've known for years now are getting tired of it all. It's sad because there's so much room for potential and growth in CoC. AW is just 1 aspect causing this (and will remain the focal point of this message). I implore Kabam to keep their ears and minds open when it comes to sound and logical feedback. The best place to start is balancing the Defense Tactics out and making them as equally useful as humanly possible.
The biggest problem with defense tactics is the defenders being affected tbh. Siphon was a massive hit not only due to the fact that you lost a ton of health, but a lot of the top defenders were villains. Flow overtook it since even though the number of good defenders is lower, the node itself is the most annoying to course, i.e power gain.
@Kabam Miike can we ask who you (meaning the decision maker) spoke to in restructuring this node and what feedback you used to come to this decision? Wondering if you all understood the overwhelming response to this node made many either stop or want to stop AW? I believe Kabam’s intent is to make things fun and challenging and want to make sure you all are truly understanding the taste this is leaving. Can we get clarity into your decision and why?
The decisions were made on a number of factors, including the feedback in this thread and other areas of the Community. We agreed that it's too hard to work around, and more punishing in higher tiers (the stack limit was 5 and 4 in the highest tiers).
This is still meant to be a challenge and change up what Champions you choose to bring into War, as Defense Tactics have always meant to do. Alliance War is competitive and is not meant to be easy.
TL:DR I dont recall it being able to stack above 3 in any tier, only difference being 35% per stack in t4 and 5 and 45% in tier 3 or above... at 3 stacks that's 135% power in 15 seconds... so 4 bars of power every 15 seconds... now lets say you get 3 crits straight away, congrats you now have an opponent that will gain 3 bars in around 11 seconds unless you can stun them, not even factoring in things like mystic dispersion and other factors (200% power gain/ 50% enhanced power effects etc)
I used to enjoy seeing people bring unique attackers to war... i myself used to bring elsa and wasp, both of these champs are totally unusable on flow due to high crit chance and no power control! All you've done is make this node passable on stun immune... thats it!
If this node must stay, it should only stack once... or at the very least needs a big reduction to the % per stack... maybe 15% and 20% instead of 35% and 45% ... its ridiculous and HEAVILY limits the champs you can use in attack phase... and if you don't have them... you're out of luck!
I feel the whole defence tactic idea itself needs a rework... why not have nodes that make fights more challenging without limiting the counters....
Opponents gain 50% damage during special attacks Opponents gains 50% passive fury when either champ is in the corner Opponents gain 20% armor everytime they're stunned but an intercept removes all stacks
Just a bit of constructive feedback! This change to flow affects barely nothing!
That is fair and constructive feedback! I'll make sure it's passed on to the team. We are not going to change this Node again until you guys have had time to actually experience it and we can gather data on it. But if we find it's still too punishing, we will change it again.
I completely understand that data collection takes time. However, will the data from Off Season be enough? Or will we have to run an entire Season again before any further changes are considered? (provided they're needed) Mind you this is hypothetically speaking. My crew falls into the general consensus when it comes to our distaste for Flow DT.
My greatest concern is not whether the change was enough to make it manageable. No. My concern is, was the change enough to put it on PAR with the other DTs difficulty wise? The reason I make mention of this is, will the change be enough dissuade Alliances from sticking to Flow over the rest of the DTs?
So far, it hasn't from what I've seen over the last 3 wars of the Off Season. The DT itself has become a bit more manageable, but that doesn't fix the problem of it being more effective than the rest. Theoretically, the DTs should be on par with eachother, that way it's not Siphon Wars, Flow Wars, Crush Wars, Dodge Wars, or Bulwark Wars. It's Alliance Wars with Defense Tactics. Note the plural of Tactics. Not Defense Tactic Flow.
@Kabam Miike can we ask who you (meaning the decision maker) spoke to in restructuring this node and what feedback you used to come to this decision? Wondering if you all understood the overwhelming response to this node made many either stop or want to stop AW? I believe Kabam’s intent is to make things fun and challenging and want to make sure you all are truly understanding the taste this is leaving. Can we get clarity into your decision and why?
The decisions were made on a number of factors, including the feedback in this thread and other areas of the Community. We agreed that it's too hard to work around, and more punishing in higher tiers (the stack limit was 5 and 4 in the highest tiers).
This is still meant to be a challenge and change up what Champions you choose to bring into War, as Defense Tactics have always meant to do. Alliance War is competitive and is not meant to be easy.
TL:DR I dont recall it being able to stack above 3 in any tier, only difference being 35% per stack in t4 and 5 and 45% in tier 3 or above... at 3 stacks that's 135% power in 15 seconds... so 4 bars of power every 15 seconds... now lets say you get 3 crits straight away, congrats you now have an opponent that will gain 3 bars in around 11 seconds unless you can stun them, not even factoring in things like mystic dispersion and other factors (200% power gain/ 50% enhanced power effects etc)
I used to enjoy seeing people bring unique attackers to war... i myself used to bring elsa and wasp, both of these champs are totally unusable on flow due to high crit chance and no power control! All you've done is make this node passable on stun immune... thats it!
If this node must stay, it should only stack once... or at the very least needs a big reduction to the % per stack... maybe 15% and 20% instead of 35% and 45% ... its ridiculous and HEAVILY limits the champs you can use in attack phase... and if you don't have them... you're out of luck!
I feel the whole defence tactic idea itself needs a rework... why not have nodes that make fights more challenging without limiting the counters....
Opponents gain 50% damage during special attacks Opponents gains 50% passive fury when either champ is in the corner Opponents gain 20% armor everytime they're stunned but an intercept removes all stacks
Just a bit of constructive feedback! This change to flow affects barely nothing!
That is fair and constructive feedback! I'll make sure it's passed on to the team. We are not going to change this Node again until you guys have had time to actually experience it and we can gather data on it. But if we find it's still too punishing, we will change it again.
Can you bring to the team the idea of possibly adding a filter so alliances can choose to fight with another defense tactic team or no tactic at all? Or similar to AQ, water down the effectiveness to the tactics if you use it more than once an AW cycle.
I’m sure it’s more complex than I’m suggesting, but losing ally mates because you guys want to “challenge” us with this is infuriating. It’s flow wars now, read the room a bit longer please
That's an interesting idea. I will definitely raise that to the team (Watering down the effectiveness if used multiple times).
Now THIS, this is something I'd love to see in play. However, considering the ability to choose per BG, I would assume that it would work the same as the Modifiers per BG. So theoretically, across 3 wars, you'd have the ability to run 1 particular DT 3× acorss 3 days in 3 different BGs. So Day 1, BG1 runs X DT, Day 2 BG2, and Day 3 BG3. BG1 would have to run Y and Z on days 2 and 3, and so on. While this could potentially lead to at least 1 BG dealing with Flow per war, it ultimately would be better than 3 wars with 3 BGs loaded with Flow.
Knowing the general timeline that it takes for changes to occur in this game from past events, I wouldn't expect the above suggestion being brought to the team by Miike to occur this Season. However, I do feel (and would wager others feel this as well) that Flow needs another tweak before Season starts. It's pretty evident that it's still the dominate Defense Tactic and that doesn't bode well for a diverse and dynamic AW experience. It becomes monotonous, and droning. It takes the fun out of what used to be one of my favorite game modes.
I know that many have stated that AW as a whole needs an overhaul. A rework top to bottom, bow to stern. I'm starting to agree with this notion and it's becoming hard not to want such. Again, knowing the time it takes (especially these days) to make a major change such as this, I wouldn't expect it to occur until at the earliest, end of the year. So hopefully sometime this year a notable change in AW occurs.
Maybe not a full rework, but something that brings value and desirability back to Alliance Wars as a whole. Players that I've known for years now are getting tired of it all. It's sad because there's so much room for potential and growth in CoC. AW is just 1 aspect causing this (and will remain the focal point of this message). I implore Kabam to keep their ears and minds open when it comes to sound and logical feedback. The best place to start is balancing the Defense Tactics out and making them as equally useful as humanly possible.
The biggest problem with defense tactics is the defenders being affected tbh. Siphon was a massive hit not only due to the fact that you lost a ton of health, but a lot of the top defenders were villains. Flow overtook it since even though the number of good defenders is lower, the node itself is the most annoying to course, i.e power gain.
That's kind of their sole purpose. To enhance the defenders that they apply too. Personally, from my POV if they cannot find a way to balance them out, then they'd be better off removing them entirely. At least until they could find some semblance of balance. The 1st iteration of Defense Tactics was manageable, and somewhat balanced.
The 2 that didn't see much usage back then (Siphon and Flow) were the ones that saw the greatest of increase in effectiveness. In an attempt to balance them, they kind of overshot the mark IMO. So without balance, there will always be 1 or 2 that get favored, and the rest left to the wayside. Which is unfortunate.
I suspect many people would be on board with getting rid of global modifiers. One of the repeated suggestions in this thread was to give AW an option to either opt in or out of modifiers and then alliances would be matched with others who chose the same option. However, I don't think Kabam will ever opt to just get rid of them, despite what the community may want.
I'd be fine with them being eliminated. It was misguided from the start. The problem with war was never that it was too easy, it's that it was boring and unrewarding.
in war you can't control how much money you have to spend, it changes on daily basic. It hurts your mentality. At least for quest you know you can quit at any point, in war you can't and it lasts for 30 days with bad rewards. Then the disaster repeats after 2 weeks.
You have to be very trong mentally to stay with flow every season. And with a big wallet.
@Kabam Miike can we ask who you (meaning the decision maker) spoke to in restructuring this node and what feedback you used to come to this decision? Wondering if you all understood the overwhelming response to this node made many either stop or want to stop AW? I believe Kabam’s intent is to make things fun and challenging and want to make sure you all are truly understanding the taste this is leaving. Can we get clarity into your decision and why?
The decisions were made on a number of factors, including the feedback in this thread and other areas of the Community. We agreed that it's too hard to work around, and more punishing in higher tiers (the stack limit was 5 and 4 in the highest tiers).
This is still meant to be a challenge and change up what Champions you choose to bring into War, as Defense Tactics have always meant to do. Alliance War is competitive and is not meant to be easy.
TL:DR I dont recall it being able to stack above 3 in any tier, only difference being 35% per stack in t4 and 5 and 45% in tier 3 or above... at 3 stacks that's 135% power in 15 seconds... so 4 bars of power every 15 seconds... now lets say you get 3 crits straight away, congrats you now have an opponent that will gain 3 bars in around 11 seconds unless you can stun them, not even factoring in things like mystic dispersion and other factors (200% power gain/ 50% enhanced power effects etc)
I used to enjoy seeing people bring unique attackers to war... i myself used to bring elsa and wasp, both of these champs are totally unusable on flow due to high crit chance and no power control! All you've done is make this node passable on stun immune... thats it!
If this node must stay, it should only stack once... or at the very least needs a big reduction to the % per stack... maybe 15% and 20% instead of 35% and 45% ... its ridiculous and HEAVILY limits the champs you can use in attack phase... and if you don't have them... you're out of luck!
I feel the whole defence tactic idea itself needs a rework... why not have nodes that make fights more challenging without limiting the counters....
Opponents gain 50% damage during special attacks Opponents gains 50% passive fury when either champ is in the corner Opponents gain 20% armor everytime they're stunned but an intercept removes all stacks
Just a bit of constructive feedback! This change to flow affects barely nothing!
That is fair and constructive feedback! I'll make sure it's passed on to the team. We are not going to change this Node again until you guys have had time to actually experience it and we can gather data on it. But if we find it's still too punishing, we will change it again.
I completely understand that data collection takes time. However, will the data from Off Season be enough? Or will we have to run an entire Season again before any further changes are considered? (provided they're needed) Mind you this is hypothetically speaking. My crew falls into the general consensus when it comes to our distaste for Flow DT.
My greatest concern is not whether the change was enough to make it manageable. No. My concern is, was the change enough to put it on PAR with the other DTs difficulty wise? The reason I make mention of this is, will the change be enough dissuade Alliances from sticking to Flow over the rest of the DTs?
So far, it hasn't from what I've seen over the last 3 wars of the Off Season. The DT itself has become a bit more manageable, but that doesn't fix the problem of it being more effective than the rest. Theoretically, the DTs should be on par with eachother, that way it's not Siphon Wars, Flow Wars, Crush Wars, Dodge Wars, or Bulwark Wars. It's Alliance Wars with Defense Tactics. Note the plural of Tactics. Not Defense Tactic Flow.
@Kabam Miike can we ask who you (meaning the decision maker) spoke to in restructuring this node and what feedback you used to come to this decision? Wondering if you all understood the overwhelming response to this node made many either stop or want to stop AW? I believe Kabam’s intent is to make things fun and challenging and want to make sure you all are truly understanding the taste this is leaving. Can we get clarity into your decision and why?
The decisions were made on a number of factors, including the feedback in this thread and other areas of the Community. We agreed that it's too hard to work around, and more punishing in higher tiers (the stack limit was 5 and 4 in the highest tiers).
This is still meant to be a challenge and change up what Champions you choose to bring into War, as Defense Tactics have always meant to do. Alliance War is competitive and is not meant to be easy.
TL:DR I dont recall it being able to stack above 3 in any tier, only difference being 35% per stack in t4 and 5 and 45% in tier 3 or above... at 3 stacks that's 135% power in 15 seconds... so 4 bars of power every 15 seconds... now lets say you get 3 crits straight away, congrats you now have an opponent that will gain 3 bars in around 11 seconds unless you can stun them, not even factoring in things like mystic dispersion and other factors (200% power gain/ 50% enhanced power effects etc)
I used to enjoy seeing people bring unique attackers to war... i myself used to bring elsa and wasp, both of these champs are totally unusable on flow due to high crit chance and no power control! All you've done is make this node passable on stun immune... thats it!
If this node must stay, it should only stack once... or at the very least needs a big reduction to the % per stack... maybe 15% and 20% instead of 35% and 45% ... its ridiculous and HEAVILY limits the champs you can use in attack phase... and if you don't have them... you're out of luck!
I feel the whole defence tactic idea itself needs a rework... why not have nodes that make fights more challenging without limiting the counters....
Opponents gain 50% damage during special attacks Opponents gains 50% passive fury when either champ is in the corner Opponents gain 20% armor everytime they're stunned but an intercept removes all stacks
Just a bit of constructive feedback! This change to flow affects barely nothing!
That is fair and constructive feedback! I'll make sure it's passed on to the team. We are not going to change this Node again until you guys have had time to actually experience it and we can gather data on it. But if we find it's still too punishing, we will change it again.
Can you bring to the team the idea of possibly adding a filter so alliances can choose to fight with another defense tactic team or no tactic at all? Or similar to AQ, water down the effectiveness to the tactics if you use it more than once an AW cycle.
I’m sure it’s more complex than I’m suggesting, but losing ally mates because you guys want to “challenge” us with this is infuriating. It’s flow wars now, read the room a bit longer please
That's an interesting idea. I will definitely raise that to the team (Watering down the effectiveness if used multiple times).
Now THIS, this is something I'd love to see in play. However, considering the ability to choose per BG, I would assume that it would work the same as the Modifiers per BG. So theoretically, across 3 wars, you'd have the ability to run 1 particular DT 3× acorss 3 days in 3 different BGs. So Day 1, BG1 runs X DT, Day 2 BG2, and Day 3 BG3. BG1 would have to run Y and Z on days 2 and 3, and so on. While this could potentially lead to at least 1 BG dealing with Flow per war, it ultimately would be better than 3 wars with 3 BGs loaded with Flow.
Knowing the general timeline that it takes for changes to occur in this game from past events, I wouldn't expect the above suggestion being brought to the team by Miike to occur this Season. However, I do feel (and would wager others feel this as well) that Flow needs another tweak before Season starts. It's pretty evident that it's still the dominate Defense Tactic and that doesn't bode well for a diverse and dynamic AW experience. It becomes monotonous, and droning. It takes the fun out of what used to be one of my favorite game modes.
I know that many have stated that AW as a whole needs an overhaul. A rework top to bottom, bow to stern. I'm starting to agree with this notion and it's becoming hard not to want such. Again, knowing the time it takes (especially these days) to make a major change such as this, I wouldn't expect it to occur until at the earliest, end of the year. So hopefully sometime this year a notable change in AW occurs.
Maybe not a full rework, but something that brings value and desirability back to Alliance Wars as a whole. Players that I've known for years now are getting tired of it all. It's sad because there's so much room for potential and growth in CoC. AW is just 1 aspect causing this (and will remain the focal point of this message). I implore Kabam to keep their ears and minds open when it comes to sound and logical feedback. The best place to start is balancing the Defense Tactics out and making them as equally useful as humanly possible.
The biggest problem with defense tactics is the defenders being affected tbh. Siphon was a massive hit not only due to the fact that you lost a ton of health, but a lot of the top defenders were villains. Flow overtook it since even though the number of good defenders is lower, the node itself is the most annoying to course, i.e power gain.
That's kind of their sole purpose. To enhance the defenders that they apply too. Personally, from my POV if they cannot find a way to balance them out, then they'd be better off removing them entirely. At least until they could find some semblance of balance. The 1st iteration of Defense Tactics was manageable, and somewhat balanced.
The 2 that didn't see much usage back then (Siphon and Flow) were the ones that saw the greatest of increase in effectiveness. In an attempt to balance them, they kind of overshot the mark IMO. So without balance, there will always be 1 or 2 that get favored, and the rest left to the wayside. Which is unfortunate.
Yeah, but that's where the problem lies. They need to balance the ability the tactic provides WITH the defenders it's affecting. Giving the defender an edge is one thing, adding too much of a bonus is another. That's where they overshot with Siphon as well. The block damage was too much, and adding champs like KM/Annihilus/Doom etc, it was basically impossible to not heal unless you had one or two champs. It's a hard thing to do, but D.T definitely needs a revision if they want other tactics to be used other than these two.
One of the worst parts about this, and I hope it was unintentional, is the invulnerability boosts was mostly unavailable the entire season
See, I'm fine with that. If boosts are that necessary just to clear a lane then they aren't boosts so much as gear. Boosts should make a fight quicker/easier, not possible
One of the worst parts about this, and I hope it was unintentional, is the invulnerability boosts was mostly unavailable the entire season
See, I'm fine with that. If boosts are that necessary just to clear a lane then they aren't boosts so much as gear. Boosts should make a fight quicker/easier, not possible
Invulnerability boosts do make the fights easier. In some cases, you do need it. Especially on AoN lanes if you don't have the best counters.
One of the reasons I think flow is completely ridiculous, is that it undermines the whole diversity aspect of war. Flow global is so good that diversity doesn’t even matter anymore and alliances will stack 10 of the same champ because everyone knows they will get kills. Can’t wait for this season to be done and it hasn’t even started yet.
I agree, it is depressing. There was no back and forth regarding this at all. There were complaints and proposed solutions through for over a month now, nothing changed until after last season where they made a woefully insufficient tweak to it, and then they shut down any and all communication after that, saying that they weren't going to make any more changes no matter what. Honestly, even in the off season they should absolutely have been able to tell that the adjustment to flow was not enough whatsoever. I know every single AW this off season has continued to be flow 100% of the time, with all the same defenders. IMIW, warlock, g2099, everywhere. This is just very purposefully turning a blind eye to the community.
Now in a silver 2 alliance skipping this upcoming season and focusing on AQ after the hell of the last in a tier 5 gold 2 ally. Like sipping pina coladas on a beach during sunset. #NoFlow
Let's be honest, defence tactics add nothing to AW other than demand heavy item use. They aren't deciding the outcome of wars, they have made war unenjoyable for the vast majority. Obviously there will be some who don't necessarily enjoy Flow but take war seriously and keep pushing.
But if the sample of people in game who I know and stay in touch with is representative, there are a lot of Alliances who could be in lower tier 3, tier 4 and 5 that have deliberately tanked down to tier 6/7 so they can maybe enjoy the odd war and have a shot at winning enough to make G1 without spending all their Glory on potions and dealing with tier 5 and up BS nodes and defence tactics.
Unless you're ultra competitive it's a no brainer. G1 with practically no item use or platinum for a few extra shards but it will cost the shirt off your back and you'll probably hate it.
Flow makes War unfun. Do 2-3 hits. Back off. Parry or well timed block. And 2-3 hits again.
Its makes war super slow and annoying.
At least turn it down to 1 charge max (it would be like a "Spite" node) or turn it down from 45% to 15%.
That would still make it tricky yet it wouldnt feel opressive like it is now.
I know you wont change it before next season is over bc you need to "gather data".
Its frustrating that you need another whole season to gather data while we know the node is just bad.
They don’t have data that tells them how often we die when the opponent reaches 2-3 power gains? Lol. They just don’t want to creat a new node between seasons on short notice. 💯
It's definitely not short notice any more. People have raised these concerns before last season even started.
Flow makes War unfun. Do 2-3 hits. Back off. Parry or well timed block. And 2-3 hits again.
Its makes war super slow and annoying.
At least turn it down to 1 charge max (it would be like a "Spite" node) or turn it down from 45% to 15%.
That would still make it tricky yet it wouldnt feel opressive like it is now.
I know you wont change it before next season is over bc you need to "gather data".
Its frustrating that you need another whole season to gather data while we know the node is just bad.
They don’t have data that tells them how often we die when the opponent reaches 2-3 power gains? Lol. They just don’t want to creat a new node between seasons on short notice. 💯
I would rather place a dupe 4/55 Ironman infinity war then a dupe 5/65 thing with flow. 6 star rank 1 champs loading up as many dupes as possible stupid not too. Can’t wait to be tier 6 again
@Kabam Miike can we ask who you (meaning the decision maker) spoke to in restructuring this node and what feedback you used to come to this decision? Wondering if you all understood the overwhelming response to this node made many either stop or want to stop AW? I believe Kabam’s intent is to make things fun and challenging and want to make sure you all are truly understanding the taste this is leaving. Can we get clarity into your decision and why?
The decisions were made on a number of factors, including the feedback in this thread and other areas of the Community. We agreed that it's too hard to work around, and more punishing in higher tiers (the stack limit was 5 and 4 in the highest tiers).
This is still meant to be a challenge and change up what Champions you choose to bring into War, as Defense Tactics have always meant to do. Alliance War is competitive and is not meant to be easy.
TL:DR I dont recall it being able to stack above 3 in any tier, only difference being 35% per stack in t4 and 5 and 45% in tier 3 or above... at 3 stacks that's 135% power in 15 seconds... so 4 bars of power every 15 seconds... now lets say you get 3 crits straight away, congrats you now have an opponent that will gain 3 bars in around 11 seconds unless you can stun them, not even factoring in things like mystic dispersion and other factors (200% power gain/ 50% enhanced power effects etc)
I used to enjoy seeing people bring unique attackers to war... i myself used to bring elsa and wasp, both of these champs are totally unusable on flow due to high crit chance and no power control! All you've done is make this node passable on stun immune... thats it!
If this node must stay, it should only stack once... or at the very least needs a big reduction to the % per stack... maybe 15% and 20% instead of 35% and 45% ... its ridiculous and HEAVILY limits the champs you can use in attack phase... and if you don't have them... you're out of luck!
I feel the whole defence tactic idea itself needs a rework... why not have nodes that make fights more challenging without limiting the counters....
Opponents gain 50% damage during special attacks Opponents gains 50% passive fury when either champ is in the corner Opponents gain 20% armor everytime they're stunned but an intercept removes all stacks
Just a bit of constructive feedback! This change to flow affects barely nothing!
That is fair and constructive feedback! I'll make sure it's passed on to the team. We are not going to change this Node again until you guys have had time to actually experience it and we can gather data on it. But if we find it's still too punishing, we will change it again.
I completely understand that data collection takes time. However, will the data from Off Season be enough? Or will we have to run an entire Season again before any further changes are considered? (provided they're needed) Mind you this is hypothetically speaking. My crew falls into the general consensus when it comes to our distaste for Flow DT.
My greatest concern is not whether the change was enough to make it manageable. No. My concern is, was the change enough to put it on PAR with the other DTs difficulty wise? The reason I make mention of this is, will the change be enough dissuade Alliances from sticking to Flow over the rest of the DTs?
So far, it hasn't from what I've seen over the last 3 wars of the Off Season. The DT itself has become a bit more manageable, but that doesn't fix the problem of it being more effective than the rest. Theoretically, the DTs should be on par with eachother, that way it's not Siphon Wars, Flow Wars, Crush Wars, Dodge Wars, or Bulwark Wars. It's Alliance Wars with Defense Tactics. Note the plural of Tactics. Not Defense Tactic Flow.
@Kabam Miike can we ask who you (meaning the decision maker) spoke to in restructuring this node and what feedback you used to come to this decision? Wondering if you all understood the overwhelming response to this node made many either stop or want to stop AW? I believe Kabam’s intent is to make things fun and challenging and want to make sure you all are truly understanding the taste this is leaving. Can we get clarity into your decision and why?
The decisions were made on a number of factors, including the feedback in this thread and other areas of the Community. We agreed that it's too hard to work around, and more punishing in higher tiers (the stack limit was 5 and 4 in the highest tiers).
This is still meant to be a challenge and change up what Champions you choose to bring into War, as Defense Tactics have always meant to do. Alliance War is competitive and is not meant to be easy.
TL:DR I dont recall it being able to stack above 3 in any tier, only difference being 35% per stack in t4 and 5 and 45% in tier 3 or above... at 3 stacks that's 135% power in 15 seconds... so 4 bars of power every 15 seconds... now lets say you get 3 crits straight away, congrats you now have an opponent that will gain 3 bars in around 11 seconds unless you can stun them, not even factoring in things like mystic dispersion and other factors (200% power gain/ 50% enhanced power effects etc)
I used to enjoy seeing people bring unique attackers to war... i myself used to bring elsa and wasp, both of these champs are totally unusable on flow due to high crit chance and no power control! All you've done is make this node passable on stun immune... thats it!
If this node must stay, it should only stack once... or at the very least needs a big reduction to the % per stack... maybe 15% and 20% instead of 35% and 45% ... its ridiculous and HEAVILY limits the champs you can use in attack phase... and if you don't have them... you're out of luck!
I feel the whole defence tactic idea itself needs a rework... why not have nodes that make fights more challenging without limiting the counters....
Opponents gain 50% damage during special attacks Opponents gains 50% passive fury when either champ is in the corner Opponents gain 20% armor everytime they're stunned but an intercept removes all stacks
Just a bit of constructive feedback! This change to flow affects barely nothing!
That is fair and constructive feedback! I'll make sure it's passed on to the team. We are not going to change this Node again until you guys have had time to actually experience it and we can gather data on it. But if we find it's still too punishing, we will change it again.
Can you bring to the team the idea of possibly adding a filter so alliances can choose to fight with another defense tactic team or no tactic at all? Or similar to AQ, water down the effectiveness to the tactics if you use it more than once an AW cycle.
I’m sure it’s more complex than I’m suggesting, but losing ally mates because you guys want to “challenge” us with this is infuriating. It’s flow wars now, read the room a bit longer please
That's an interesting idea. I will definitely raise that to the team (Watering down the effectiveness if used multiple times).
Now THIS, this is something I'd love to see in play. However, considering the ability to choose per BG, I would assume that it would work the same as the Modifiers per BG. So theoretically, across 3 wars, you'd have the ability to run 1 particular DT 3× acorss 3 days in 3 different BGs. So Day 1, BG1 runs X DT, Day 2 BG2, and Day 3 BG3. BG1 would have to run Y and Z on days 2 and 3, and so on. While this could potentially lead to at least 1 BG dealing with Flow per war, it ultimately would be better than 3 wars with 3 BGs loaded with Flow.
Knowing the general timeline that it takes for changes to occur in this game from past events, I wouldn't expect the above suggestion being brought to the team by Miike to occur this Season. However, I do feel (and would wager others feel this as well) that Flow needs another tweak before Season starts. It's pretty evident that it's still the dominate Defense Tactic and that doesn't bode well for a diverse and dynamic AW experience. It becomes monotonous, and droning. It takes the fun out of what used to be one of my favorite game modes.
I know that many have stated that AW as a whole needs an overhaul. A rework top to bottom, bow to stern. I'm starting to agree with this notion and it's becoming hard not to want such. Again, knowing the time it takes (especially these days) to make a major change such as this, I wouldn't expect it to occur until at the earliest, end of the year. So hopefully sometime this year a notable change in AW occurs.
Maybe not a full rework, but something that brings value and desirability back to Alliance Wars as a whole. Players that I've known for years now are getting tired of it all. It's sad because there's so much room for potential and growth in CoC. AW is just 1 aspect causing this (and will remain the focal point of this message). I implore Kabam to keep their ears and minds open when it comes to sound and logical feedback. The best place to start is balancing the Defense Tactics out and making them as equally useful as humanly possible.
The biggest problem with defense tactics is the defenders being affected tbh. Siphon was a massive hit not only due to the fact that you lost a ton of health, but a lot of the top defenders were villains. Flow overtook it since even though the number of good defenders is lower, the node itself is the most annoying to course, i.e power gain.
That's kind of their sole purpose. To enhance the defenders that they apply too. Personally, from my POV if they cannot find a way to balance them out, then they'd be better off removing them entirely. At least until they could find some semblance of balance. The 1st iteration of Defense Tactics was manageable, and somewhat balanced.
The 2 that didn't see much usage back then (Siphon and Flow) were the ones that saw the greatest of increase in effectiveness. In an attempt to balance them, they kind of overshot the mark IMO. So without balance, there will always be 1 or 2 that get favored, and the rest left to the wayside. Which is unfortunate.
Yeah, but that's where the problem lies. They need to balance the ability the tactic provides WITH the defenders it's affecting. Giving the defender an edge is one thing, adding too much of a bonus is another. That's where they overshot with Siphon as well. The block damage was too much, and adding champs like KM/Annihilus/Doom etc, it was basically impossible to not heal unless you had one or two champs. It's a hard thing to do, but D.T definitely needs a revision if they want other tactics to be used other than these two.
There will always be certain defenders that are problematic on their own, let alone with a boost from a DT. That is pretty much a given. In many cases, it can be played around. Siphon can be played around to a certain degree now. The original reworked version, pre-nerf was painful for sure. 3 blocked hits and anything that immediately followed, the health strated falling off at an alarming rate. The new one, eh... workable IMO. At this point seeing Siphon is a welcomed thing, lol. Anything but Flow.
Flow on the other hand becomes more tricky. If the Ai gets super passive with Siphon, the charges fall off. Whereas if the Ai gets super passive with Flow, you get faced with risking trying to sneak a heavy attack in to break their block and bait them out of the corner. Which could result in a face full of combo, or you get ready to eat a S3 as their power bar spikes towards full. If the Ai goes extremely aggressive with Siphon, it can open the door to easy intercepts and avoiding block damage. Ai goes aggressive with Flow, that's as ideal as it gets for that DT so you can get your 2-3 hits in post parry/well timed block and setup to rinse, repeat.
Thing is, especially as of late, the Ai seems to go the route of passive and calculative play over aggressive. So Siphon becomes less impactful whereas Flow becomes more intense, even with the recent change (if they ain't swinging, no way to remove the stacks gained). Hence more and more Flow Wars becoming the norm. I do agree, and basically said this twice now, they definitely need to balance them all out. Naturally I would expect 1 to be a bit less ideal, and 1-2 being a bit more ideal. This isn't a bit more ideal though, Flow is far more ideal.
Whether DTs exist or not, there will always be problematic node/champ combinations in AW. This is pretty much known by anyone who runs T5+ (especially T3+). Throwing in a 3rd factor with the DTs needs to be carefully calculated and definitely need to take into consideration the worst of the worst (or best of the best depending upon how you look at things, lol). Sure the bulk of Flow defenders are laughable even with the DT. However, the ones that are effective, are EXTREMELY EFFECTIVE. So yes, there in lies the problem. Taking an already effective defender and juicing them up even more.
As such, I agree with some of the original ideas of either adding in a cooldown period, reducing the percentage gained per stack, or reducing the number of max stacks. Any one of those would balance the DT a bit more and perhaps steer Alliances towards changing things up a bit. Or the other suggestion where the DTs get weaker each time you utilize the same one inside the same cycle of war. That should be the end game here. Making it so 1 DT isn't favored above the other 4. The single change of removing the Stun requirement helped, but not nearly enough to inspire Alliances to switch things up IMHO.
We went through the entire Off Season fighting STRICTLY FLOW. Nothing else. Isn't that data enough? Shouldn't the data reflect the MASSIVE usage of Flow? The lack of diversity on the grids these days? Seriously, I haven't seen a full 150 diversity in AGES. We used to run it during the 1st incarnation of Siphon, in Tier 3. We ran it after they nerfed Siphon and Flow started to gain some traction. Then we fell back into Tier 4 due to the crazy Flow wars. Ever since the 1st cycle of AW last Season, we ditched diversity, ditched rotating DTs and built a Flow grid with repeats. As far as I can see, so did pretty much everyone else. Is that not data enough to prove that Flow is still too effective? It's time something notable be done. I'll admit, the change helped, just not nearly enough.
Even "laughable" defenders that benefit from flow become much more dangerous. Case in point, I have a 6* r2 duped havok on defense. He routinely gets less kills than my 6* r1 unduped doc ock.
@Kabam Miike can we ask who you (meaning the decision maker) spoke to in restructuring this node and what feedback you used to come to this decision? Wondering if you all understood the overwhelming response to this node made many either stop or want to stop AW? I believe Kabam’s intent is to make things fun and challenging and want to make sure you all are truly understanding the taste this is leaving. Can we get clarity into your decision and why?
The decisions were made on a number of factors, including the feedback in this thread and other areas of the Community. We agreed that it's too hard to work around, and more punishing in higher tiers (the stack limit was 5 and 4 in the highest tiers).
This is still meant to be a challenge and change up what Champions you choose to bring into War, as Defense Tactics have always meant to do. Alliance War is competitive and is not meant to be easy.
TL:DR I dont recall it being able to stack above 3 in any tier, only difference being 35% per stack in t4 and 5 and 45% in tier 3 or above... at 3 stacks that's 135% power in 15 seconds... so 4 bars of power every 15 seconds... now lets say you get 3 crits straight away, congrats you now have an opponent that will gain 3 bars in around 11 seconds unless you can stun them, not even factoring in things like mystic dispersion and other factors (200% power gain/ 50% enhanced power effects etc)
I used to enjoy seeing people bring unique attackers to war... i myself used to bring elsa and wasp, both of these champs are totally unusable on flow due to high crit chance and no power control! All you've done is make this node passable on stun immune... thats it!
If this node must stay, it should only stack once... or at the very least needs a big reduction to the % per stack... maybe 15% and 20% instead of 35% and 45% ... its ridiculous and HEAVILY limits the champs you can use in attack phase... and if you don't have them... you're out of luck!
I feel the whole defence tactic idea itself needs a rework... why not have nodes that make fights more challenging without limiting the counters....
Opponents gain 50% damage during special attacks Opponents gains 50% passive fury when either champ is in the corner Opponents gain 20% armor everytime they're stunned but an intercept removes all stacks
Just a bit of constructive feedback! This change to flow affects barely nothing!
That is fair and constructive feedback! I'll make sure it's passed on to the team. We are not going to change this Node again until you guys have had time to actually experience it and we can gather data on it. But if we find it's still too punishing, we will change it again.
I completely understand that data collection takes time. However, will the data from Off Season be enough? Or will we have to run an entire Season again before any further changes are considered? (provided they're needed) Mind you this is hypothetically speaking. My crew falls into the general consensus when it comes to our distaste for Flow DT.
My greatest concern is not whether the change was enough to make it manageable. No. My concern is, was the change enough to put it on PAR with the other DTs difficulty wise? The reason I make mention of this is, will the change be enough dissuade Alliances from sticking to Flow over the rest of the DTs?
So far, it hasn't from what I've seen over the last 3 wars of the Off Season. The DT itself has become a bit more manageable, but that doesn't fix the problem of it being more effective than the rest. Theoretically, the DTs should be on par with eachother, that way it's not Siphon Wars, Flow Wars, Crush Wars, Dodge Wars, or Bulwark Wars. It's Alliance Wars with Defense Tactics. Note the plural of Tactics. Not Defense Tactic Flow.
@Kabam Miike can we ask who you (meaning the decision maker) spoke to in restructuring this node and what feedback you used to come to this decision? Wondering if you all understood the overwhelming response to this node made many either stop or want to stop AW? I believe Kabam’s intent is to make things fun and challenging and want to make sure you all are truly understanding the taste this is leaving. Can we get clarity into your decision and why?
The decisions were made on a number of factors, including the feedback in this thread and other areas of the Community. We agreed that it's too hard to work around, and more punishing in higher tiers (the stack limit was 5 and 4 in the highest tiers).
This is still meant to be a challenge and change up what Champions you choose to bring into War, as Defense Tactics have always meant to do. Alliance War is competitive and is not meant to be easy.
TL:DR I dont recall it being able to stack above 3 in any tier, only difference being 35% per stack in t4 and 5 and 45% in tier 3 or above... at 3 stacks that's 135% power in 15 seconds... so 4 bars of power every 15 seconds... now lets say you get 3 crits straight away, congrats you now have an opponent that will gain 3 bars in around 11 seconds unless you can stun them, not even factoring in things like mystic dispersion and other factors (200% power gain/ 50% enhanced power effects etc)
I used to enjoy seeing people bring unique attackers to war... i myself used to bring elsa and wasp, both of these champs are totally unusable on flow due to high crit chance and no power control! All you've done is make this node passable on stun immune... thats it!
If this node must stay, it should only stack once... or at the very least needs a big reduction to the % per stack... maybe 15% and 20% instead of 35% and 45% ... its ridiculous and HEAVILY limits the champs you can use in attack phase... and if you don't have them... you're out of luck!
I feel the whole defence tactic idea itself needs a rework... why not have nodes that make fights more challenging without limiting the counters....
Opponents gain 50% damage during special attacks Opponents gains 50% passive fury when either champ is in the corner Opponents gain 20% armor everytime they're stunned but an intercept removes all stacks
Just a bit of constructive feedback! This change to flow affects barely nothing!
That is fair and constructive feedback! I'll make sure it's passed on to the team. We are not going to change this Node again until you guys have had time to actually experience it and we can gather data on it. But if we find it's still too punishing, we will change it again.
Can you bring to the team the idea of possibly adding a filter so alliances can choose to fight with another defense tactic team or no tactic at all? Or similar to AQ, water down the effectiveness to the tactics if you use it more than once an AW cycle.
I’m sure it’s more complex than I’m suggesting, but losing ally mates because you guys want to “challenge” us with this is infuriating. It’s flow wars now, read the room a bit longer please
That's an interesting idea. I will definitely raise that to the team (Watering down the effectiveness if used multiple times).
Now THIS, this is something I'd love to see in play. However, considering the ability to choose per BG, I would assume that it would work the same as the Modifiers per BG. So theoretically, across 3 wars, you'd have the ability to run 1 particular DT 3× acorss 3 days in 3 different BGs. So Day 1, BG1 runs X DT, Day 2 BG2, and Day 3 BG3. BG1 would have to run Y and Z on days 2 and 3, and so on. While this could potentially lead to at least 1 BG dealing with Flow per war, it ultimately would be better than 3 wars with 3 BGs loaded with Flow.
Knowing the general timeline that it takes for changes to occur in this game from past events, I wouldn't expect the above suggestion being brought to the team by Miike to occur this Season. However, I do feel (and would wager others feel this as well) that Flow needs another tweak before Season starts. It's pretty evident that it's still the dominate Defense Tactic and that doesn't bode well for a diverse and dynamic AW experience. It becomes monotonous, and droning. It takes the fun out of what used to be one of my favorite game modes.
I know that many have stated that AW as a whole needs an overhaul. A rework top to bottom, bow to stern. I'm starting to agree with this notion and it's becoming hard not to want such. Again, knowing the time it takes (especially these days) to make a major change such as this, I wouldn't expect it to occur until at the earliest, end of the year. So hopefully sometime this year a notable change in AW occurs.
Maybe not a full rework, but something that brings value and desirability back to Alliance Wars as a whole. Players that I've known for years now are getting tired of it all. It's sad because there's so much room for potential and growth in CoC. AW is just 1 aspect causing this (and will remain the focal point of this message). I implore Kabam to keep their ears and minds open when it comes to sound and logical feedback. The best place to start is balancing the Defense Tactics out and making them as equally useful as humanly possible.
The biggest problem with defense tactics is the defenders being affected tbh. Siphon was a massive hit not only due to the fact that you lost a ton of health, but a lot of the top defenders were villains. Flow overtook it since even though the number of good defenders is lower, the node itself is the most annoying to course, i.e power gain.
That's kind of their sole purpose. To enhance the defenders that they apply too. Personally, from my POV if they cannot find a way to balance them out, then they'd be better off removing them entirely. At least until they could find some semblance of balance. The 1st iteration of Defense Tactics was manageable, and somewhat balanced.
The 2 that didn't see much usage back then (Siphon and Flow) were the ones that saw the greatest of increase in effectiveness. In an attempt to balance them, they kind of overshot the mark IMO. So without balance, there will always be 1 or 2 that get favored, and the rest left to the wayside. Which is unfortunate.
Yeah, but that's where the problem lies. They need to balance the ability the tactic provides WITH the defenders it's affecting. Giving the defender an edge is one thing, adding too much of a bonus is another. That's where they overshot with Siphon as well. The block damage was too much, and adding champs like KM/Annihilus/Doom etc, it was basically impossible to not heal unless you had one or two champs. It's a hard thing to do, but D.T definitely needs a revision if they want other tactics to be used other than these two.
There will always be certain defenders that are problematic on their own, let alone with a boost from a DT. That is pretty much a given. In many cases, it can be played around. Siphon can be played around to a certain degree now. The original reworked version, pre-nerf was painful for sure. 3 blocked hits and anything that immediately followed, the health strated falling off at an alarming rate. The new one, eh... workable IMO. At this point seeing Siphon is a welcomed thing, lol. Anything but Flow.
Flow on the other hand becomes more tricky. If the Ai gets super passive with Siphon, the charges fall off. Whereas if the Ai gets super passive with Flow, you get faced with risking trying to sneak a heavy attack in to break their block and bait them out of the corner. Which could result in a face full of combo, or you get ready to eat a S3 as their power bar spikes towards full. If the Ai goes extremely aggressive with Siphon, it can open the door to easy intercepts and avoiding block damage. Ai goes aggressive with Flow, that's as ideal as it gets for that DT so you can get your 2-3 hits in post parry/well timed block and setup to rinse, repeat.
Thing is, especially as of late, the Ai seems to go the route of passive and calculative play over aggressive. So Siphon becomes less impactful whereas Flow becomes more intense, even with the recent change (if they ain't swinging, no way to remove the stacks gained). Hence more and more Flow Wars becoming the norm. I do agree, and basically said this twice now, they definitely need to balance them all out. Naturally I would expect 1 to be a bit less ideal, and 1-2 being a bit more ideal. This isn't a bit more ideal though, Flow is far more ideal.
Whether DTs exist or not, there will always be problematic node/champ combinations in AW. This is pretty much known by anyone who runs T5+ (especially T3+). Throwing in a 3rd factor with the DTs needs to be carefully calculated and definitely need to take into consideration the worst of the worst (or best of the best depending upon how you look at things, lol). Sure the bulk of Flow defenders are laughable even with the DT. However, the ones that are effective, are EXTREMELY EFFECTIVE. So yes, there in lies the problem. Taking an already effective defender and juicing them up even more.
As such, I agree with some of the original ideas of either adding in a cooldown period, reducing the percentage gained per stack, or reducing the number of max stacks. Any one of those would balance the DT a bit more and perhaps steer Alliances towards changing things up a bit. Or the other suggestion where the DTs get weaker each time you utilize the same one inside the same cycle of war. That should be the end game here. Making it so 1 DT isn't favored above the other 4. The single change of removing the Stun requirement helped, but not nearly enough to inspire Alliances to switch things up IMHO.
We went through the entire Off Season fighting STRICTLY FLOW. Nothing else. Isn't that data enough? Shouldn't the data reflect the MASSIVE usage of Flow? The lack of diversity on the grids these days? Seriously, I haven't seen a full 150 diversity in AGES. We used to run it during the 1st incarnation of Siphon, in Tier 3. We ran it after they nerfed Siphon and Flow started to gain some traction. Then we fell back into Tier 4 due to the crazy Flow wars. Ever since the 1st cycle of AW last Season, we ditched diversity, ditched rotating DTs and built a Flow grid with repeats. As far as I can see, so did pretty much everyone else. Is that not data enough to prove that Flow is still too effective? It's time something notable be done. I'll admit, the change helped, just not nearly enough.
That's exactly what I'm telling. Node combinations with champs are fine. That's what makes AW a challenge. But as I said, they overshot on the initial Siphon and on Flow when adding the globals. Because they didn't take into consideration how the global affects the node champ combination at all levels.
Kabam have destroyed the ‘flow’ of wars completely.. they are now boring defensive stand offs, wars used to get my heart racing now I just can’t help but laugh at the insane power gain as I get sp3’d to the face
@Kabam Miike can we ask who you (meaning the decision maker) spoke to in restructuring this node and what feedback you used to come to this decision? Wondering if you all understood the overwhelming response to this node made many either stop or want to stop AW? I believe Kabam’s intent is to make things fun and challenging and want to make sure you all are truly understanding the taste this is leaving. Can we get clarity into your decision and why?
The decisions were made on a number of factors, including the feedback in this thread and other areas of the Community. We agreed that it's too hard to work around, and more punishing in higher tiers (the stack limit was 5 and 4 in the highest tiers).
This is still meant to be a challenge and change up what Champions you choose to bring into War, as Defense Tactics have always meant to do. Alliance War is competitive and is not meant to be easy.
TL:DR I dont recall it being able to stack above 3 in any tier, only difference being 35% per stack in t4 and 5 and 45% in tier 3 or above... at 3 stacks that's 135% power in 15 seconds... so 4 bars of power every 15 seconds... now lets say you get 3 crits straight away, congrats you now have an opponent that will gain 3 bars in around 11 seconds unless you can stun them, not even factoring in things like mystic dispersion and other factors (200% power gain/ 50% enhanced power effects etc)
I used to enjoy seeing people bring unique attackers to war... i myself used to bring elsa and wasp, both of these champs are totally unusable on flow due to high crit chance and no power control! All you've done is make this node passable on stun immune... thats it!
If this node must stay, it should only stack once... or at the very least needs a big reduction to the % per stack... maybe 15% and 20% instead of 35% and 45% ... its ridiculous and HEAVILY limits the champs you can use in attack phase... and if you don't have them... you're out of luck!
I feel the whole defence tactic idea itself needs a rework... why not have nodes that make fights more challenging without limiting the counters....
Opponents gain 50% damage during special attacks Opponents gains 50% passive fury when either champ is in the corner Opponents gain 20% armor everytime they're stunned but an intercept removes all stacks
Just a bit of constructive feedback! This change to flow affects barely nothing!
That is fair and constructive feedback! I'll make sure it's passed on to the team. We are not going to change this Node again until you guys have had time to actually experience it and we can gather data on it. But if we find it's still too punishing, we will change it again.
I completely understand that data collection takes time. However, will the data from Off Season be enough? Or will we have to run an entire Season again before any further changes are considered? (provided they're needed) Mind you this is hypothetically speaking. My crew falls into the general consensus when it comes to our distaste for Flow DT.
My greatest concern is not whether the change was enough to make it manageable. No. My concern is, was the change enough to put it on PAR with the other DTs difficulty wise? The reason I make mention of this is, will the change be enough dissuade Alliances from sticking to Flow over the rest of the DTs?
So far, it hasn't from what I've seen over the last 3 wars of the Off Season. The DT itself has become a bit more manageable, but that doesn't fix the problem of it being more effective than the rest. Theoretically, the DTs should be on par with eachother, that way it's not Siphon Wars, Flow Wars, Crush Wars, Dodge Wars, or Bulwark Wars. It's Alliance Wars with Defense Tactics. Note the plural of Tactics. Not Defense Tactic Flow.
@Kabam Miike can we ask who you (meaning the decision maker) spoke to in restructuring this node and what feedback you used to come to this decision? Wondering if you all understood the overwhelming response to this node made many either stop or want to stop AW? I believe Kabam’s intent is to make things fun and challenging and want to make sure you all are truly understanding the taste this is leaving. Can we get clarity into your decision and why?
The decisions were made on a number of factors, including the feedback in this thread and other areas of the Community. We agreed that it's too hard to work around, and more punishing in higher tiers (the stack limit was 5 and 4 in the highest tiers).
This is still meant to be a challenge and change up what Champions you choose to bring into War, as Defense Tactics have always meant to do. Alliance War is competitive and is not meant to be easy.
TL:DR I dont recall it being able to stack above 3 in any tier, only difference being 35% per stack in t4 and 5 and 45% in tier 3 or above... at 3 stacks that's 135% power in 15 seconds... so 4 bars of power every 15 seconds... now lets say you get 3 crits straight away, congrats you now have an opponent that will gain 3 bars in around 11 seconds unless you can stun them, not even factoring in things like mystic dispersion and other factors (200% power gain/ 50% enhanced power effects etc)
I used to enjoy seeing people bring unique attackers to war... i myself used to bring elsa and wasp, both of these champs are totally unusable on flow due to high crit chance and no power control! All you've done is make this node passable on stun immune... thats it!
If this node must stay, it should only stack once... or at the very least needs a big reduction to the % per stack... maybe 15% and 20% instead of 35% and 45% ... its ridiculous and HEAVILY limits the champs you can use in attack phase... and if you don't have them... you're out of luck!
I feel the whole defence tactic idea itself needs a rework... why not have nodes that make fights more challenging without limiting the counters....
Opponents gain 50% damage during special attacks Opponents gains 50% passive fury when either champ is in the corner Opponents gain 20% armor everytime they're stunned but an intercept removes all stacks
Just a bit of constructive feedback! This change to flow affects barely nothing!
That is fair and constructive feedback! I'll make sure it's passed on to the team. We are not going to change this Node again until you guys have had time to actually experience it and we can gather data on it. But if we find it's still too punishing, we will change it again.
Can you bring to the team the idea of possibly adding a filter so alliances can choose to fight with another defense tactic team or no tactic at all? Or similar to AQ, water down the effectiveness to the tactics if you use it more than once an AW cycle.
I’m sure it’s more complex than I’m suggesting, but losing ally mates because you guys want to “challenge” us with this is infuriating. It’s flow wars now, read the room a bit longer please
That's an interesting idea. I will definitely raise that to the team (Watering down the effectiveness if used multiple times).
Now THIS, this is something I'd love to see in play. However, considering the ability to choose per BG, I would assume that it would work the same as the Modifiers per BG. So theoretically, across 3 wars, you'd have the ability to run 1 particular DT 3× acorss 3 days in 3 different BGs. So Day 1, BG1 runs X DT, Day 2 BG2, and Day 3 BG3. BG1 would have to run Y and Z on days 2 and 3, and so on. While this could potentially lead to at least 1 BG dealing with Flow per war, it ultimately would be better than 3 wars with 3 BGs loaded with Flow.
Knowing the general timeline that it takes for changes to occur in this game from past events, I wouldn't expect the above suggestion being brought to the team by Miike to occur this Season. However, I do feel (and would wager others feel this as well) that Flow needs another tweak before Season starts. It's pretty evident that it's still the dominate Defense Tactic and that doesn't bode well for a diverse and dynamic AW experience. It becomes monotonous, and droning. It takes the fun out of what used to be one of my favorite game modes.
I know that many have stated that AW as a whole needs an overhaul. A rework top to bottom, bow to stern. I'm starting to agree with this notion and it's becoming hard not to want such. Again, knowing the time it takes (especially these days) to make a major change such as this, I wouldn't expect it to occur until at the earliest, end of the year. So hopefully sometime this year a notable change in AW occurs.
Maybe not a full rework, but something that brings value and desirability back to Alliance Wars as a whole. Players that I've known for years now are getting tired of it all. It's sad because there's so much room for potential and growth in CoC. AW is just 1 aspect causing this (and will remain the focal point of this message). I implore Kabam to keep their ears and minds open when it comes to sound and logical feedback. The best place to start is balancing the Defense Tactics out and making them as equally useful as humanly possible.
The biggest problem with defense tactics is the defenders being affected tbh. Siphon was a massive hit not only due to the fact that you lost a ton of health, but a lot of the top defenders were villains. Flow overtook it since even though the number of good defenders is lower, the node itself is the most annoying to course, i.e power gain.
That's kind of their sole purpose. To enhance the defenders that they apply too. Personally, from my POV if they cannot find a way to balance them out, then they'd be better off removing them entirely. At least until they could find some semblance of balance. The 1st iteration of Defense Tactics was manageable, and somewhat balanced.
The 2 that didn't see much usage back then (Siphon and Flow) were the ones that saw the greatest of increase in effectiveness. In an attempt to balance them, they kind of overshot the mark IMO. So without balance, there will always be 1 or 2 that get favored, and the rest left to the wayside. Which is unfortunate.
Yeah, but that's where the problem lies. They need to balance the ability the tactic provides WITH the defenders it's affecting. Giving the defender an edge is one thing, adding too much of a bonus is another. That's where they overshot with Siphon as well. The block damage was too much, and adding champs like KM/Annihilus/Doom etc, it was basically impossible to not heal unless you had one or two champs. It's a hard thing to do, but D.T definitely needs a revision if they want other tactics to be used other than these two.
There will always be certain defenders that are problematic on their own, let alone with a boost from a DT. That is pretty much a given. In many cases, it can be played around. Siphon can be played around to a certain degree now. The original reworked version, pre-nerf was painful for sure. 3 blocked hits and anything that immediately followed, the health strated falling off at an alarming rate. The new one, eh... workable IMO. At this point seeing Siphon is a welcomed thing, lol. Anything but Flow.
Flow on the other hand becomes more tricky. If the Ai gets super passive with Siphon, the charges fall off. Whereas if the Ai gets super passive with Flow, you get faced with risking trying to sneak a heavy attack in to break their block and bait them out of the corner. Which could result in a face full of combo, or you get ready to eat a S3 as their power bar spikes towards full. If the Ai goes extremely aggressive with Siphon, it can open the door to easy intercepts and avoiding block damage. Ai goes aggressive with Flow, that's as ideal as it gets for that DT so you can get your 2-3 hits in post parry/well timed block and setup to rinse, repeat.
Thing is, especially as of late, the Ai seems to go the route of passive and calculative play over aggressive. So Siphon becomes less impactful whereas Flow becomes more intense, even with the recent change (if they ain't swinging, no way to remove the stacks gained). Hence more and more Flow Wars becoming the norm. I do agree, and basically said this twice now, they definitely need to balance them all out. Naturally I would expect 1 to be a bit less ideal, and 1-2 being a bit more ideal. This isn't a bit more ideal though, Flow is far more ideal.
Whether DTs exist or not, there will always be problematic node/champ combinations in AW. This is pretty much known by anyone who runs T5+ (especially T3+). Throwing in a 3rd factor with the DTs needs to be carefully calculated and definitely need to take into consideration the worst of the worst (or best of the best depending upon how you look at things, lol). Sure the bulk of Flow defenders are laughable even with the DT. However, the ones that are effective, are EXTREMELY EFFECTIVE. So yes, there in lies the problem. Taking an already effective defender and juicing them up even more.
As such, I agree with some of the original ideas of either adding in a cooldown period, reducing the percentage gained per stack, or reducing the number of max stacks. Any one of those would balance the DT a bit more and perhaps steer Alliances towards changing things up a bit. Or the other suggestion where the DTs get weaker each time you utilize the same one inside the same cycle of war. That should be the end game here. Making it so 1 DT isn't favored above the other 4. The single change of removing the Stun requirement helped, but not nearly enough to inspire Alliances to switch things up IMHO.
We went through the entire Off Season fighting STRICTLY FLOW. Nothing else. Isn't that data enough? Shouldn't the data reflect the MASSIVE usage of Flow? The lack of diversity on the grids these days? Seriously, I haven't seen a full 150 diversity in AGES. We used to run it during the 1st incarnation of Siphon, in Tier 3. We ran it after they nerfed Siphon and Flow started to gain some traction. Then we fell back into Tier 4 due to the crazy Flow wars. Ever since the 1st cycle of AW last Season, we ditched diversity, ditched rotating DTs and built a Flow grid with repeats. As far as I can see, so did pretty much everyone else. Is that not data enough to prove that Flow is still too effective? It's time something notable be done. I'll admit, the change helped, just not nearly enough.
That's exactly what I'm telling. Node combinations with champs are fine. That's what makes AW a challenge. But as I said, they overshot on the initial Siphon and on Flow when adding the globals. Because they didn't take into consideration how the global affects the node champ combination at all levels.
Maybe they knew exactly how it would play out. Could quite easily be done with intent. We'll never know for sure. Think about it objectively, you would literally have to know almost nothing about the game not to realise these globals are op. Obviously some very intelligent people work at Kabam, it's difficult to believe such an oversight would be made.
Well, even if it was an oversight when initially developed, after last season + this off-season, I don't think that really holds weight anymore. There should be no mystery as to what's going to happen this season. Flow all the time. Same flow defenders. People either giving up or blowing items like crazy.
Comments
My greatest concern is not whether the change was enough to make it manageable. No. My concern is, was the change enough to put it on PAR with the other DTs difficulty wise? The reason I make mention of this is, will the change be enough dissuade Alliances from sticking to Flow over the rest of the DTs?
So far, it hasn't from what I've seen over the last 3 wars of the Off Season. The DT itself has become a bit more manageable, but that doesn't fix the problem of it being more effective than the rest. Theoretically, the DTs should be on par with eachother, that way it's not Siphon Wars, Flow Wars, Crush Wars, Dodge Wars, or Bulwark Wars. It's Alliance Wars with Defense Tactics. Note the plural of Tactics. Not Defense Tactic Flow. Now THIS, this is something I'd love to see in play. However, considering the ability to choose per BG, I would assume that it would work the same as the Modifiers per BG. So theoretically, across 3 wars, you'd have the ability to run 1 particular DT 3× acorss 3 days in 3 different BGs. So Day 1, BG1 runs X DT, Day 2 BG2, and Day 3 BG3. BG1 would have to run Y and Z on days 2 and 3, and so on. While this could potentially lead to at least 1 BG dealing with Flow per war, it ultimately would be better than 3 wars with 3 BGs loaded with Flow.
Knowing the general timeline that it takes for changes to occur in this game from past events, I wouldn't expect the above suggestion being brought to the team by Miike to occur this Season. However, I do feel (and would wager others feel this as well) that Flow needs another tweak before Season starts. It's pretty evident that it's still the dominate Defense Tactic and that doesn't bode well for a diverse and dynamic AW experience. It becomes monotonous, and droning. It takes the fun out of what used to be one of my favorite game modes.
I know that many have stated that AW as a whole needs an overhaul. A rework top to bottom, bow to stern. I'm starting to agree with this notion and it's becoming hard not to want such. Again, knowing the time it takes (especially these days) to make a major change such as this, I wouldn't expect it to occur until at the earliest, end of the year. So hopefully sometime this year a notable change in AW occurs.
Maybe not a full rework, but something that brings value and desirability back to Alliance Wars as a whole. Players that I've known for years now are getting tired of it all. It's sad because there's so much room for potential and growth in CoC. AW is just 1 aspect causing this (and will remain the focal point of this message). I implore Kabam to keep their ears and minds open when it comes to sound and logical feedback. The best place to start is balancing the Defense Tactics out and making them as equally useful as humanly possible.
The 2 that didn't see much usage back then (Siphon and Flow) were the ones that saw the greatest of increase in effectiveness. In an attempt to balance them, they kind of overshot the mark IMO. So without balance, there will always be 1 or 2 that get favored, and the rest left to the wayside. Which is unfortunate.
You have to be very trong mentally to stay with flow every season. And with a big wallet.
Do 2-3 hits. Back off. Parry or well timed block. And 2-3 hits again.
Its makes war super slow and annoying.
At least turn it down to 1 charge max (it would be like a "Spite" node) or turn it down from 45% to 15%.
That would still make it tricky yet it wouldnt feel opressive like it is now.
I know you wont change it before next season is over bc you need to "gather data".
Its frustrating that you need another whole season to gather data while we know the node is just bad.
They aren't deciding the outcome of wars, they have made war unenjoyable for the vast majority.
Obviously there will be some who don't necessarily enjoy Flow but take war seriously and keep pushing.
But if the sample of people in game who I know and stay in touch with is representative, there are a lot of Alliances who could be in lower tier 3, tier 4 and 5 that have deliberately tanked down to tier 6/7 so they can maybe enjoy the odd war and have a shot at winning enough to make G1 without spending all their Glory on potions and dealing with tier 5 and up BS nodes and defence tactics.
Unless you're ultra competitive it's a no brainer. G1 with practically no item use or platinum for a few extra shards but it will cost the shirt off your back and you'll probably hate it.
Flow on the other hand becomes more tricky. If the Ai gets super passive with Siphon, the charges fall off. Whereas if the Ai gets super passive with Flow, you get faced with risking trying to sneak a heavy attack in to break their block and bait them out of the corner. Which could result in a face full of combo, or you get ready to eat a S3 as their power bar spikes towards full. If the Ai goes extremely aggressive with Siphon, it can open the door to easy intercepts and avoiding block damage. Ai goes aggressive with Flow, that's as ideal as it gets for that DT so you can get your 2-3 hits in post parry/well timed block and setup to rinse, repeat.
Thing is, especially as of late, the Ai seems to go the route of passive and calculative play over aggressive. So Siphon becomes less impactful whereas Flow becomes more intense, even with the recent change (if they ain't swinging, no way to remove the stacks gained). Hence more and more Flow Wars becoming the norm. I do agree, and basically said this twice now, they definitely need to balance them all out. Naturally I would expect 1 to be a bit less ideal, and 1-2 being a bit more ideal. This isn't a bit more ideal though, Flow is far more ideal.
Whether DTs exist or not, there will always be problematic node/champ combinations in AW. This is pretty much known by anyone who runs T5+ (especially T3+). Throwing in a 3rd factor with the DTs needs to be carefully calculated and definitely need to take into consideration the worst of the worst (or best of the best depending upon how you look at things, lol). Sure the bulk of Flow defenders are laughable even with the DT. However, the ones that are effective, are EXTREMELY EFFECTIVE. So yes, there in lies the problem. Taking an already effective defender and juicing them up even more.
As such, I agree with some of the original ideas of either adding in a cooldown period, reducing the percentage gained per stack, or reducing the number of max stacks. Any one of those would balance the DT a bit more and perhaps steer Alliances towards changing things up a bit. Or the other suggestion where the DTs get weaker each time you utilize the same one inside the same cycle of war. That should be the end game here. Making it so 1 DT isn't favored above the other 4. The single change of removing the Stun requirement helped, but not nearly enough to inspire Alliances to switch things up IMHO.
We went through the entire Off Season fighting STRICTLY FLOW. Nothing else. Isn't that data enough? Shouldn't the data reflect the MASSIVE usage of Flow? The lack of diversity on the grids these days? Seriously, I haven't seen a full 150 diversity in AGES. We used to run it during the 1st incarnation of Siphon, in Tier 3. We ran it after they nerfed Siphon and Flow started to gain some traction. Then we fell back into Tier 4 due to the crazy Flow wars. Ever since the 1st cycle of AW last Season, we ditched diversity, ditched rotating DTs and built a Flow grid with repeats. As far as I can see, so did pretty much everyone else. Is that not data enough to prove that Flow is still too effective? It's time something notable be done. I'll admit, the change helped, just not nearly enough.