Recommended Changes to AW (Please Comment and Read! Especially Kabam!!)
Hello all, I'm Abner2020 in game. I have some ideas about changing AW and I hope someone from Kabam reads this. First off, I think AW needs to be thrown out and reworked. The rewards are low for the commitment and the cost of potions along with dedication doesn't merit the investment. After watching KT1's video, he summed it up pretty well by saying AW is basically alliances versus AW nodes instead of alliances versus alliances. I would like AW to be more of a competition between alliances and would focus more on tactics and skill and less on placement and unit spending. With that in mind, here is my idea for an entire alliance overhaul.
1) New Maps: Throw out the entire map and create a new one that would be more of a battle royal style. Have a huge map with 100+ nodes, more laid out like a Chinese checker pattern, and have each of the six alliances (a larger map could have more alliances) start off controlling no nodes. When registering for the Alliance War, the alliance can choose a map tier they wish (ie challenger, expert etc.) The higher the difficulty, the stronger the NODE EFFECT will be in buffing defenders. Also more difficult maps will reward more AW tokens. Node effects and AW tokens will be explained further down the thread.
2) New Rewards: Eliminate season rewards and make rewards sooner. Incentivize taking control of the nodes in the middle of the board. The best rewards are in the exact center of the board. Controlling a node gives the controlling alliance members participating in that battleground a buff or benefit. For example, the node in the exact center could give +10% to all units earned through quests, crystals, or purchases. The node would need to be controlled for a certain period of time (Say 15 minutes for less beneficial nodes to 1 hour for awesome nodes) before the buff kicks in but once the buff is activated, it would benefit all players in the alliance that are participating in the war for that specific battleground. By placing some type of small to awesome benefit for controlling a node, rewards would be more immediate and it would greatly encourage more pvp interaction between alliances.
3) Before the War: BG groups would still consist of up a minimum of five players but up to 10 players (depending on the size of the map). Players would choose FIVE attackers at the BEGINNING OF the battle (instead of after the war started). Attacking teams would be allowed to use SYNERGY BONUSES. This is your attack team for the entire AW. Next you choose THREE teams of FIVE heroes for defense. These defending teams would also be allowed to use SYNERGIES. After you choose your 1 attack team of five heroes and 3 teams of five defenders, your registration for the war would be complete.
4) Starting the War: At the start of the war, each of the six alliances would start off in their corner and move to one node at the cost of 1 Action per movement. Once you move to a node, if you wish to claim an node, you must spend another action point to claim the node, or if the node is defended, 1 action to attack it.
5) Claiming Nodes: All nodes on the map are unclaimed and have none, minor, major, and great benefits to the alliance members in the battleground who control them. Controlling a node is easy, use 1 action point to move to a node and 1 point to attack/claim it. If a node is unclaimed, you may choose 1 of your 3 teams of five defenders to claim the node. You may also add one NODE EFFECT to help your defenders defend the node (i.e. Aegis, Buffet). At first this may seem like this gives the defenders too much of an advantage but it will balance out in the next part. (The total amount of action points allowed and the rate of regeneration would depend on the size on the map and the amount of alliances in the battleground)
6) Attacking Nodes: When you move to a node that is already claimed by another alliance, you may attack it at the cost of 1 action point. Attacking works very similar to the Arena but instead of 3v3 its 5v5. The defenders get their synergy and node buffs (ie Aegis, Buffet) to help their defenders but the advantage the attackers have is they get to select which heroes attack what defenders, thus helping balance out attack and defense. You must defeat all five defenders to claim the node. If for example, if you kill 3 defenders but lose to 2, two defenders would remain. This would mean you would need to spend ANOTHER action point to attack with your three remain attackers to defeat the remaining two defenders (in this case you would simple choose 2 attackers for a 2v2). The action points are designed to limit players from paying to win. After a fight, you can use potions, revives, etc to heal your attackers but the action points prevents attackers from trying over and over and over and ensuring victory as long as they spend units. Defenders may also revive and heal their defenders but again, that also costs an action point which is designed to prevent defenders for spending units to ensure they keep a node.
7) Node Benefits: After keeping the node for the required time, ranges from 15 minutes for low benefit nodes to more) the members of the alliance who are in the battleground will gain the benefits. These benefits will extend BEYOND AW. For example, one node would say "Any alliance who controls this node, all their AW participants in the battleground receive +10% attack to all heroes in all forms of gameplay". You could do another node that would increase quest energy regeneration rate.
8) AW Quests: Each AW will have a set of quests that benefit the players. For example: "Control 20 nodes at once: get a level 5 AW potion." There can be up to five of these per AW and the rewards would vary depending on difficulty.
9) AW Tokens: Successfully claiming, capturing, and defending a node will give that individual player tokens depending on how well they did (a 5v5 sweep of your opponent will give more tokens etc). At the end of the war, tokens are received in the mail for all players who participated with additional tokens being given to the winning alliance, MVP players for each alliance, etc. These tokens can be used at any time in the AW store.
10) AW Store: This is the store where alliances can use token they've earned from AW to purchase rewards. The store will have a variety of items like potions, hero shards, buffs, catalyst, and more importantly, EXCLUSIVE HEROES that can only be found here.
11) Strategy: Action points will be used strategically to determine when to take a node. "I only have 1 action point, should I risk taking the node? What if I'm not successful? I don't have an additional point to attack again. Should I save my action points to defend a node I really want to keep instead of attacking a different node? Which teams should I use? Which teams will have good synergies for defense or offence?" Since you will not be placing defenders before the start of the war but only after you claim an empty node, this will encourage new strategies especially with the addition of synergies.
12) Benefit: This shakes up AW, focuses less on buying units to win, focus more on Alliance versus Alliance while allowing players to USE MORE OF THE HEROES THEY LOVE! Different alliance members have different needs. This means that if one group of AW alliance participants needs units, they would all join the same BG together to try and control the "+10% unit" node. But other people may want gold so their battleground would focus on controlling nodes that give additional gold.
13 Remaining questions: Are heroes locked in AW like the previous AW? We will be using 20 heroes instead of 8. How should alliances be matched? What is the minimum and maximum map size is for 6 alliances? Should there be bigger or smaller maps? How many action points should player get? How often should they be refreshed?
Please comment here with any suggestions, tweaks, comments, or recommendations. Like you, I love the game and think it could be so much better.
Peace
-Abner2020
