AW loss = more difficult opponents?
SillyCaitlin
Member Posts: 535 ★
Several months ago, it seemed to be the case that when we lost an AW, our opponents tended to be lower ranked and easier to defeat; when we won an AW, our opponents tended to be higher ranked and more difficult to defeat. This is not the case anymore.
We’re around 7.8 mil—and after losing against alliances similar in rating (7-9mil) we’ve been put up against even more difficult 10 and 11 mil alliances that earn, literally, 100% in exploration and have champs that outrank us (we get between 95-98% exploration and all 3 bosses—but still we can’t keep up without having a perfect score).
In the past few months, we’ve gone down from averaging a war rating of 900-1100, to a war rating of 700.
What is going on here? What has changed?
I’m looking for insights on how matchmaking has changed—I don’t need anyone telling me 98% exploration simply isn’t good enough to ever win a war... because I can say with certainty, this hasn’t always been the case.
We’re around 7.8 mil—and after losing against alliances similar in rating (7-9mil) we’ve been put up against even more difficult 10 and 11 mil alliances that earn, literally, 100% in exploration and have champs that outrank us (we get between 95-98% exploration and all 3 bosses—but still we can’t keep up without having a perfect score).
In the past few months, we’ve gone down from averaging a war rating of 900-1100, to a war rating of 700.
What is going on here? What has changed?
I’m looking for insights on how matchmaking has changed—I don’t need anyone telling me 98% exploration simply isn’t good enough to ever win a war... because I can say with certainty, this hasn’t always been the case.
3
Comments
Defense/offense isn’t necessarily balanced though.
War is matched by war rating.
How do you get a higher rating? you win.
How was this done pre-war changes? Exploration, boss kills, defender kills.
The two factors into these were $$$ and skill, with a little in who was placed on defense. Not their PI, just how difficult they were to fight coupled with their nodes.
Now bring in the defender rating snafu from a few months ago when they tried to change war. Several alliances now won wars because they had higher rated defenders. Usually meaning they won if they had higher prestige.
Now we're seeing the aftermath of war systems changed and hopefully it is working itself back out to $$$ and skill, but it is resulting in some weird match-ups.
If you do this then people will just place weak defenders to ensure a matchup against an easier ally.....
This will make it worse... then as more allys do itnyou will end up in exactly the same postition.
While the new war features and map are not perfect they do a better job of making wars fair. My guess is even exploring 98% and taking 3 bosses you are finding that they win not only on exploration, but also on diversity and attacker kills (meaning they kill your champs in less tries than you kill their champs).
If this is the case the only solution you really have is to keep testing and trying new defenses to see if you can find a way to stop them in a BG and give you a chance to win outright on boss kills.
For example:
We got matched with a 2.6mill alliance average rating of 90k average member rating.
We are a 5mill alliance with over 150k average member rating.
Now I thought it was weird but we did lose 2 matches and dropped two tiers to tier 8.
But on further inspection, we are facing an alliance that actually has much stronger champs (Tons of 3/45s and 4/55s). However it looks like they sell a lot of their champs + have sandbaggers with top champs that are 3*s.
Long story short, this alliance would run through alliances matched up based on total rating or average rating, but they got matched up with us because their prestige is high.
This type of system promotes skill and discourages sandbagging and other exploits to get unfair match ups.
So does this mean that losing 2 wars in a row encourage a weak matchip for the 3rd war thus increasing the chance of ending a losing streak like we have been probably used to?
NO
You will have just as hard a matchup as the wars you have lost.
So I can understand the frustration of going on a long losing streak, but matchups based on prestige is probably the most fair way of matching.
Also, it promotes staying in your alliance with friends even if you outgrew them. (As your prestige gets higher, then your alliance's average prestige increases, and the opponents you get matched up with will get tougher).
Lastly as some have mentioned, it promotes trying hard every AW instead of what top alliances were doing (drop 6 tiers to tier 7 then just laugh running through alliances back to tier 1, obtaining 5* shards most efficiently).
While my alliance might be on a losing streak as well, I think this system works better than it ever has.
You are rewarded for skill, as well as strategic champion placement, rather than just flat out running through weak alliances until you hit a wall in upper tiers.
Also no offense to the o.p. but as others have also mentioned, if your exploration was that close, then you could have just outskilled them in attack bonus, which is nearly as important as exploration (exploration is like 300 pts per 1%, 3 attack bonus is 240 pts). Therefore even if they explored 1% more than you, all you would need is 4 more attack bonus.