**Mastery Loadouts**
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
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To be fair though, I’m not really arguing with you across multiple threads. I’m reading multiple threads and interacting with things with which I agree and disagree. I can’t help it if you happen to be wrong on multiple threads.
This is the part I'm not getting, there are 9 paths and a backup person, if the first half of a tough path is empty it's not going to stop someone walking across those tiles before they get to the roadblock
When times don't get walked across it's usually because someone has died and isn't reviving
Actually, I would say that is false. We took an unnecessarily windy road to get here, but we are nowhere near where we started. For one thing, attacker bonuses are fundamentally different from defender kill points in one critical respect: there are literally no circumstances in which it is better to stop attacking a node under the announced system. None, no matter how weird or contrived. There were circumstances under 14.0 where this was not true. We can argue how important they were, but they existed. Now, that complaint cannot be lodged.
We also have a map that is now, in my opinion, harder than it needs to be with this new scoring system. I don't know if the devs will reexamine map difficulty, but the difficulty was designed to prevent 100% map exploration even if one side chose to spend their way to the end, and now this isn't a necessary goal.
If we erase all of the prior iterations after 14.0 as a bad dream and compare the announced system to 14.0, in my opinion:
* Attacker bonus points are better than defender kill points overall, although that doesn't mean they couldn't be improved over time
* The Map path configurations are neutral: different, a change of pace, not necessarily better or worse
* More minibosses is an interesting improvement strategically
* The node difficulty is higher than 14.0, and in a way that is (now) unnecessarily so
* Defender diversity still needs to be changed to be a true tie breaker
* Node links are too concentrated in the middle in my opinion
* The paths restrict access to the far left and far right bosses too much to be consistent with the originally stated objective to make it easier for players to maneuver and help each other out. The middle paths might be better than 14.0, but the far side miniboss paths offer worse coordinated access than in 14.0.
What would you suggest as an adjustment to Diversity?
What about after the roadblock? You get to choose where to put the empty defensive nodes, do you place them after one of the "strong" nodes like 24, or do you put another strong defender there to synergize with node 24 and try to stop that path, which forces you to concentrate the empty spots in other place and create much easier paths to traverse? Do you want 9 equally difficult paths or three really hard ones, three average ones, and three trivially easy ones?
If you put all of the empty nodes into a single path, that path becomes a cake walk. But the other side still has to dedicate a player to walk over them to get the exploration. Is that better? Force one attacker to take an empty path and end up with all attackers at full strength, but eat up more of another attacker who now has to take on more nodes and could be even weaker when they reach the bosses?
I don't have answers to those questions, I'm suggesting the game poses those questions to the player placing defenders, which is something new to think about. Whether this is an "interesting" option to consider probably will require experience to determine fully.
Kabam keeps saying it is meant to be a tie breaker. If it is meant to be a tie breaker, it should be treated like a tie breaker. Diversity scores no points. If one side wins, they win. If both sides tie, then diversity is consulted and whichever side has the higher diversity breaks the tie and wins. That's how all tie breakers work.
Right now it is not a tie breaker. It is a small fraction of the total points available that can decide a closely fought war. In most competitions, this is the worst thing you can do. You do not want the least important thing to decide the hardest closest fought competitions and the ones with the closest score are often the hardest fought.
I mentioned an exemplar of the problem earlier in the thread. A good thing about AW is that in a war where everything is really close, the entire war can hinge on the actions of a single alliance player. That one player that fought for that one last node kill can sometimes decide the war. Diversity points can take that win away, or appear to. As a game designer, you live for that moment when someone cares that much about your handiwork, and cheers for a victory in a game composed of pixels and bits. It is not easy to do. Diversity points takes some of that away.
I agree, they've done an amazing thing with this update, however, I think they can consider removing diversity from war. The only tiebreaker necessary is defender rating, which we already had in 14.0. Then also consider the low amount of rewards. Since the game is evolving, war should as well, being a major part of the game. December rewards are nice, but before we know it, January will be here and our main source of shards will be war.
I actually like diversity as a tie breaker more than defender rating. There’s no inherent advantage to either side with diversity. I think they will adjust rewards once AW is finally nailed down, they said so at the start of this. Given the comparatively huge rewards in EQ now, there’s no way it’s not addressed.
In this case we will have much fewer ties. Different alliances have different skillsets of players, and overall it will reflect this. I do see your point though, but I personally don't want to shy away from a challenge of difficult nodes with difficult defenders and let's see who's better.
Like I said though, this is definitely a step in the right direction.
The fact that they seem reluctant to call it a "close war scale tipper" suggests that's not what they want it to appear to be psychologically. If they came straight out and said they want diversity points to decide close wars, I think they'd be face-palmed.
Correct. However, I'm sure they're aware of what an actual tie-breaker is. I suppose we could argue that the metrics serve that purpose when there is a tie in scoring. Difference being they still account for something when there is no tie present. It's clear they want Diversity to account for something at least.
I have to be fair: this is more than a step in the right direction. This is more than several steps in the right direction. This is definitely a jetpack shooting up in the sky and landing within walking distance of the right house. I did not see any way to get to a good place from node tweak after node tweak. But from where this announcement is, I see a way to get to where I think most of us want to be with simple iteration.
To be frank, I think we will start to disagree amongst ourselves in which way to continue to go. And that's a good thing. When almost everyone agrees which way you should go, that tells you that you must be very far away in the wrong direction. But when everyone starts to point in slightly different directions, you know you're getting close. And when everyone starts pointing in every direction, you know you're standing in the middle of all of them.
Ok, I understated it. Obviously it's a huge leap in the right direction. And I agree, we will all have different ideas about the little things. At least we can say it's about skill now and not all about diversity and rating. That I'm very happy to see.
I like these changes and I am absolutely going to try to herd some cats and get them back to participating in this aspect of the game. You absolutely should get more points for killing people, getting killed less, killing more efficiently and effectively.
I didn't mind diversity, and still don't. But the priority in AW should always be kills
I thought tie-breaker should be an occurrence which takes place after the event is over, for example a penalty shoot-out in a football/soccer game or even a coin-toss.
It is also used to determined which team is placed above the other if everything is the same, except that the determining factor does not takes place at the beginning.
Currently, no matter how little points is given to diversity, if those points are made known at the beginning, one team already know it is defeat.
It is like a little table tennis game, where the defending champion gets to play on if its a draw, while the challenger loses if its a draw.
Well, that's why I believe tie-breaker is used slightly more loosely in this instance. It's speculation, but it's based on the fact that it's been used before, but the Points are still present. With the new iterations, I don't believe it will be true that the Match will be predicted by knowing the Diversity metrics. Defender Points are more of a fixed state, and emphasis is placed on Attack for the bulk of Points. Something that I actually agree with, and had suggested before as an alternative, when I suggested Bonus Points for Attack rather than punitive Kill Points. Of course I wasn't the only one. The only issue that caught my attention was the removal of Defender Rating. I understand the reasoning behind it and I can respect that is the direction they decided to go. I am aware of the issue it posed with regards to determining Wins. I still think having it as some sort of metric is important. Then again, I'm not the soap box type. I will concede and see how this goes.
When I started in AW, I was thinking that AI (which was buffed) would be able to manage a 4/40 champ better than me using the same champ as attacker. So I zeroed in to awaken, rank and level champs I have that performs best to kill an attacker.
With the new conditions, there is now "pressure" to make the kill on the first try. I suppose the strategy will now be to awaken, rank and level champs with inflicts high damage.
The latest changes does seem to show, in scoring, the results of smart strategized placing and skill based playing (with the exception of diversity). And to determine the victor is who was better in those metrics. The scoring now though is more complex and is really beneficial for the consistently skillfull alliances.
In my perspective, the chances of a tie with the complexity of the new scoring system is minimal only for low tier wars. This is because in the higher tiers, where skillfull playing is a norm, you can almost always assume that they will always get 100% exploration WITH NO KOs for non-mini and non-boss nodes. (A very tough feat to consistently play in this level now and will truly highlight players and their alliances in wars.)
I can see problems only rising in the higher tiers where diversity will always be the determining factor if the champs are always shown. I do suggest to avoid these instances in the higher tiers that defense placement be hidden so the other scoring metric, defense placement, is heightened to add a level of strategy and surprise. Smart placing then can trip up the gameplay of even some of the most skillfull players simply because they assumed wrong and brought in the wrong champ in a fight. This was an element that we loved playing with in the old wars and I would love to be back.
I do agree with DNA regarding diversity as a tiebreaker...it should only be considered after a tie in scoring.
Correction: i meant, we can assume 100% exploration wherein the only KOs coming from the minis, boss and possibly the chap 5 buffed nodes.
First and foremost, I'd like to be included among those of us that would like to give a BIG THANK YOU and thumbs up to Kabam for implementing the new changes that address a large portion of the playerbase complaints and also for including some of the actual suggestions to scoring made by some of our own who have been vigilante in striving for a better game experience. I'm very excited to play the updated AW and giving positive feedback!
If you feel indifferent about it that means you don't care...