Alliance war season 2 starts in two weeks! Where is the change log?
Riegel
Member Posts: 1,088 ★★★★
Season 1 has been over for some time. This was supposed to be a test bed for AW seasons as a whole, but to date we do not know what will be changed going into season 2.
During the pre-season of season 1 I made a post, https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/48569/aw-matchmaking-update#latest the point was that the current matchmaking was not going to work. It received no reply from Kabam. This ended up being a major issue, and one alliance was given increased rewards as this affected them.
I hope going into season 2 we can discuss known issues and have them resolved before the start of the new season.
The main issue is piloting in all of its forms.
1. A skilled pilot can play all 30 accounts in his alliance to minimize deaths and maximize rewards.
2. A pilot may sell his skills to another alliance who may not have a skilled pilot of their own. RMT
3. A pilot may sell his account into an alliance and pilot that alliance for money. RMT.
4. A pilot from one alliance may sell his services to another alliance for other forms of payment.
Other forms of payment may be 2* wars giving the pilots alliance the win.
Also, this allows the pilot to avoid match ups with his alliance, and target specific alliances with the piloted alliance.
For example if the pilots alliance is rank 4, and the piloted alliance is vs the rank 3 alliance, the pilot can benefit his alliance by defeating the rank 3 alliance with no risk to his own alliance. Hard to understand, but basically the pilots alliance can climb the leader board at no risk.
5. The development of, https://theclassadvantage.com/war-opponent-calculator/ now lets people more easily figure out who they are facing in the war. This is a much easier fix. Simply remove the gain/loss in war rating and average the countdown for the war placement phase to the nearest 1, 5, 10, 30 minute.
For example instead of showing "War placement phase ends in 12:48:28" show 12:48 or 12:50 or 13:00. When you show down to the second it is very easy to discover who you are versing.
6. 2* wars need fixed. Make anything lower than 4* champions award less points at or above the plat 2 bracket.
4* are still easy, but I've seen people die to 2* champs during season 1 and this alliance got in the top 20.
This is a brief list of the major issues. If there are more to add please post them.
Quotes from the Alliance War seasons reveal video from Kabam.
"The coolest new feature."
"The biggest bragging rights in the game."
"Anytime someone looks at your profile or your alliance, they will be able to see how badass your alliance is and how active they are in war."
"We wanted to make alliance war as competitive as a mode can be, so we did changes to the scoring to rewards effort, to rewards strategy and most of all to make the mode more skill based."
"There has been a lot of talk about which alliance is better than which alliance, which alliance is the very best one, but now with seasons the talking is over because now we are going to find out."
There is still a lot of talk about which alliance is the best alliance, because we really didn't find out during season 1.
I hope we will see some of the issues above addressed before May 2nd. Seasons is a great feature, but I was told I was getting skill based content, and all I got was 5 guys with skill playing hundreds of accounts.
During the pre-season of season 1 I made a post, https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/48569/aw-matchmaking-update#latest the point was that the current matchmaking was not going to work. It received no reply from Kabam. This ended up being a major issue, and one alliance was given increased rewards as this affected them.
I hope going into season 2 we can discuss known issues and have them resolved before the start of the new season.
The main issue is piloting in all of its forms.
1. A skilled pilot can play all 30 accounts in his alliance to minimize deaths and maximize rewards.
2. A pilot may sell his skills to another alliance who may not have a skilled pilot of their own. RMT
3. A pilot may sell his account into an alliance and pilot that alliance for money. RMT.
4. A pilot from one alliance may sell his services to another alliance for other forms of payment.
Other forms of payment may be 2* wars giving the pilots alliance the win.
Also, this allows the pilot to avoid match ups with his alliance, and target specific alliances with the piloted alliance.
For example if the pilots alliance is rank 4, and the piloted alliance is vs the rank 3 alliance, the pilot can benefit his alliance by defeating the rank 3 alliance with no risk to his own alliance. Hard to understand, but basically the pilots alliance can climb the leader board at no risk.
5. The development of, https://theclassadvantage.com/war-opponent-calculator/ now lets people more easily figure out who they are facing in the war. This is a much easier fix. Simply remove the gain/loss in war rating and average the countdown for the war placement phase to the nearest 1, 5, 10, 30 minute.
For example instead of showing "War placement phase ends in 12:48:28" show 12:48 or 12:50 or 13:00. When you show down to the second it is very easy to discover who you are versing.
6. 2* wars need fixed. Make anything lower than 4* champions award less points at or above the plat 2 bracket.
4* are still easy, but I've seen people die to 2* champs during season 1 and this alliance got in the top 20.
This is a brief list of the major issues. If there are more to add please post them.
Quotes from the Alliance War seasons reveal video from Kabam.
"The coolest new feature."
"The biggest bragging rights in the game."
"Anytime someone looks at your profile or your alliance, they will be able to see how badass your alliance is and how active they are in war."
"We wanted to make alliance war as competitive as a mode can be, so we did changes to the scoring to rewards effort, to rewards strategy and most of all to make the mode more skill based."
"There has been a lot of talk about which alliance is better than which alliance, which alliance is the very best one, but now with seasons the talking is over because now we are going to find out."
There is still a lot of talk about which alliance is the best alliance, because we really didn't find out during season 1.
I hope we will see some of the issues above addressed before May 2nd. Seasons is a great feature, but I was told I was getting skill based content, and all I got was 5 guys with skill playing hundreds of accounts.
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Comments
I hope there is change. I hope it's announced soon.
People are going to come up with all kinds of excuses for piloting. Oh its my brothers account he cant play in school. or Oh i have two accounts, or Oh a buddy of mine lost his phone so i fought for him.
While im sure sometimes there are valid excuses. But, how could kabam prove it? Not only that, what could they do about it.
This piloting issue also doesn't effect the majority of the MCOC community, it happens in the highest tiers of AW, which only makes up roughly 1% of the community. I think that is a big reason why this issue is having a hard time getting attention.
I get your frustration though, i mean think if you were playing Halo or Call of Duty online, on person cant be 6 players at once. Everyone has to be skilled and on the same page.
My opinion, the only way Kabam could fix this without banning people and banning anyone who logs onto a different account on the same device is to change the point system. But to what?
Very complex issue here, but i feel you bro.
I do agree that this mostly affects the top tiers of AW, but that's the entire point of AW seasons, being at the top. It's supposed to be a skill driven content. The fact that this game is different than other team games like World of Warcraft and Halo/CoD as you said is exactly right. Not everyone has to be present at the same time. You cant pilot another CoD, Halo or WoW account. You have to have a full team of skilled players.
The fact not everyone needs to be present at the same time opens this huge way to cheat, you don't need a full alliance of skilled players. One person can play all 30 accounts of his alliance and all 30 accounts of multiple other alliances as well.
Thanks for your presence on this issue, you always help big issues gain traction.
I do hope they directly address the issue.
This seems like they are indirectly addressing the issue. I hope this is not the case. Knowing that this is happening for fact and seeing this statement leads me to that thought though. Much funny business took place, but all rewards went out.
Maybe they do have intentions on addressing it but are unsure how. I would love to hear others ideas.
I laid out ideas for the 2* wars and the new AW calculator in my OP. Both would need done in conjunction.
Ideas for account sharing will have to come from Kabam I think. Like I said in my previous post I've played a mobile game that would ban you if you logged in from a vastly different location within "X" amount of hours. Does Kabam have this capability? IDK.
In apps you can request that location services be turned on, but idk if this data is sent to Kabam. Could they make you link to Facebook and obtain location that way? Does game center record location? Is there a way to discover piloting for fact without location at all?
I'm not familiar with many things only those inside Kabam would be familiar with regarding their coding structure. I do know that this is a huge problem for the integrity of the contest.
If we push for anything it should be that they say that first.
Unfortunately, I completely agree. I have a gold thread open now doing exactly that, disagreeing with each other.
The only reason I keep posting is to raise visibility and maybe Kabam will feel they have to respond eventually. However, after over 8000 views and 600 comments still nothing.
I don't know how to get Kabam to communicate anything. They have been so silent for so long.
https://playcontestofchampions.com/v18-0-release-notes/
"After a successful first season, we’re back with Alliance Wars Season 2! Several nodes have been overhauled in the Expert difficulty map to create more variety in encounters, as well as make defender placement decisions have more impact and value."
Lots of exciting news, but nothing on the cheating that is currently affecting the integrity of the contest and AW Seasons. Time is running out. We may be stuck with another season of rampant cheating and collusion, but I hope this wont be the case.
Could very well be. All we can do is keep bringing it up, and wait for Kabam to let us know one way or the other.
1. Will they say, "piloting is legal in all forms, but don't message us if someone sells your champs etc?"
2. Will they say, "we are going to be a lot more strict on these forms of cheating." (currently against TOS) and actually follow through?
3. Will they acknowledge the problem and just say, "There's nothing we can do at this time."
4. Will they stay silent.
5. Some other option.
In the big picture, I think Kabam is looking for bigger fish to fry like account modders/botters. Those reports they might look into further and take quicker action. They might be overwhelmed with those as well - like guy with 4+ 5/65 5* champs. I think the sad truth is that AW seasons will continue to go on in the same way like last season. It is still very competetive for everyone - pilots are people too and make mistakes. There are plenty of master alliances who let you play your own account if you're skilled. The top 3-5 alliances have their own systems as you outlined quite accurately. In a game structure like this one, the top competitors will always find a way to manipulate the game to their best advantage - it is just the way it is.
I do want to say that, so far we have not called anyone or any group/alliance out. This is important. Please do not call anyone or any alliance out by name (or any form). That will set us back from our goal of having uniquely skillful game and season in AW.
What we are calling out is the loopholes in the system. ie: 2* wars, piloting, the AW Calculator, Other ways to find out who you are vs'ing, and other types of collusion. Many of these could be fixed.
We need to stay focused on the issues, not the people causing the issues.
So far so good people.
1. Piloting
2. Collusion
It would be great to have these addressed before May 2nd. This is an issue Kabam will have to take the lead on. Asking us to report individual cases will not help. There is no "good enough proof" we could send. This is something Kabam would have to crack down on together with us.
Cudos for your meticulous and patient approach on this topic. Many players have commented that it is not easy to identify instances of piloting. I know someone with substantial experience in areas that deal with interpreting online and digital information. He's given keynote speeches at cyber security conferences, has publications in information technology/information security, and has been involved in competitions like CyberPatriot. According to him it is not difficult for companies determine a) precisely who accesses their online services, and b) what device people use to access their online services.
The forum is filled with players commenting on this topic as if they understand what kind of procedures are needed to identify instances of players piloting accounts in alliance wars. The reality is that a select few if any actually do, and Kabam's continued silence on this topic gives a growing impression that AW piloting will not be addressed.
Thanks, it's the only way I have found that works.
Thanks, it's the only way I have found that works.
This is true. Actually identifying from within the game (as a player) that piloting is happening is impossible. Yes, you may see one by one movement, but thats's proof of nothing really. This is why it cannot fall to the player to report these cases.
Correct, and you don't have to be a security expert to know it is possible to collect the necessary data. Many apps collect location data, phone data, etc.
For example an account log in from an iPhone 8 being used in Vietnam at 6:00 pm PST vs an iPhone X being used in California at 6:10 pm PST is a clear indication of account sharing.
What information does Kabam collect? IDK, but they could collect this data if they don't already.
Very true, it would be of great benefit for Kabam to tell us instead of letting our imaginations run wild. It could be that they are spending a lot of manpower to fix this issue, but their silence, to me, has always been their downfall. A simple reply that can inform us that they are taking this seriously, looking for offenders, and reassurance that offenders will be punished would go a long way. There would have to be follow through. The community would have to be able to see actions being taking against the biggest offenders.
Silence leads us to think they might be intentionally avoiding punishing offenders as they may be big spenders. I hope this is not the case.
Brian Grant commented on this very topic on his live stream, I will post the clip when it's available. He had some good insight.
You know what irks me the most? People who colluded constantly whine, whinge and complain incessantly when they are also part of the problem. Yeah that popular youtuber and his friend who complain all stream when they definitely cheated. Funny part was when they got caught out on reddit, they called the person a "conspiracy theorist" and that his "tinfoil hat" was wound too tight.
Closing this thread until there is something to share.