War changes pros, cons and questions

First off, its great to see changes coming to AW lots of complaining about AW becoming stale and it looks like Kabam really took a lot of player complaints into consideration. Starting off with what I see as improvements, the new boosts look like they will be very valuable and allow you to bring more diverse champions into AW attack. Now OG vision and power control champs won't be the only sure fire counter to the unblockable Sp2 and all or nothing nodes so for players that take that node regularly and only bring in power control champs to counter such nodes it will free up a spot on their team that will be more beneficial overall and I think it is very funny every champ can pretty much be a super charged Luke Cage now. Advanced power will be great with certain champions to counter nodes like all or nothing and increased power gain even more effectively. Magiks, gwenpools and visions will be able to get to their sp2s quicker giving them complete control of the fight early on and combat regeneration is just fantastic for obvious reasons. Secondly, skirmish awards, any extra rewards are great but depending on how substantial these rewards are it could help mitigate a lot of issues with players always running low on gold. With some alliances running AW 3 times a week that could be a lot of extra gold. Finally the changes to the map designs, portals and less linked nodes makes AW much better for the indivicual player now that they will be less dependent of team members that aren't as active to clear linked nodes.

With any big change it is expected there are going to raise concern and have some parts that look to be quite annoying and this change is no different. The first con I can see is one of your mentioned node changes, increased energy damage. The obvious concern for this is magik, with almost every counter for magik you still have to endure one or two limbos before you can get her in control. So with the coming of rank 5 5* this could be quite a bad node depending on how inflated the node makes such magiks. Another concern is the introduction of 5 minibosses before the boss. In the current state of AW if you take out 2 of the mini boss nodes and leave the third you can still be able to take out the boss. Now if all 5 minibosses inflate the boss as much as each miniboss node does currently this could prove very problematic and cause players to spend more units. The final major complaint I can see is the removal of thorns, the removal of the node itself is great but some people have ranked up champions for the sole purpose of placing on such nodes and countering such nodes. People with 5* antmans, 4* luke cages, colossuses, black widows and elektras could be quite salty since most of those champs are not top tier champions and now their value is diminished even more. Champion specific rank down tickets would solve this issue but until those are announced this remains a concern.

Now there are a lot of changes that I put into the questionable territory since there is not enough information to group them as a pro or con. First is the announcement of more information on champs you will be fighting. While to me and many other players who haven't invested in reveal masteries this is a big pro for those who have I see them being salty now that the mastery is next you useless. The biggest question I have right now is with the new scoring system, while more diversity points look to solve the constant same defenders problem we don't have enough information to gauge how war changing this will actually be. Will the points gained be substantial enough to actually change defender choices or will be too insignificant to actually impact defence choices. Another question that I almost put as a con is the removal of defender kills points. This seems like it will give a huge advantage to spenders since now they can just whale through all nodes with no consequences of giving the other team extra points. Again I don't know exactly how this change will play out in reality but for now it is a big question mark for me.

All in all even with all my questions and concerns overall I think these are fantastic changes and its great to see kabam is taking more player base concerns into consideration and keeping to their promise of progressing the contest. I would love to hear what other people think about these changes so please add and respond just please keep the comments civil and don't turn it into a game of flag football.

Comments

Ready61

I'm loving the new challenge with AW. I just have one question. Why we not getting better rewards for AW?

Sungj

Ready61 wrote: »

I'm loving the new challenge with AW. I just have one question. Why we not getting better rewards for AW?

They said they are going to increase rewards, I think they are waiting to see how the initial changes are received by the player base once it is actually implemented in game first before the increase the rewards

SpiritOfVengeance

Exactly no reward changes is stupid

Goken2345

My only problem is with no defender kills. The only benefit I see to that is padding Kabam's bottom line by more people buying revives and potions.

Sungj

Kabamalicious wrote: »

Exactly no reward changes is stupid

Read the post fully they said they are going to change rewards soon they are just waiting till we get closer to the introduction of 6 stars so the game is in line with increased rewards. Currently the game as a whole hasn't changed to really push for the increased availability of 5 stars so when that happens, most likely by the end of the year AW rewards will be changed accordingly

SpiritOfVengeance

Sorry thanks for telling me.

Ready61

They need to make tier 2 alpha fragments more substanable. Not just in glory store but for AW rewards as well. Alliances will be using a lot of more resources to complete this longer war board. And with the coming of 6* champions it's not looking good. If you reading this Kabam don't wait for everyone to through a upset and have majority of spenders giving up on the game. It's becoming harder and harder to find guys willing to spend in this game. A few retired already just from hearing about 6 stars.

Sungj

Ready61 wrote: »

They need to make tier 2 alpha fragments more substanable. Not just in glory store but for AW rewards as well. Alliances will be using a lot of more resources to complete this longer war board. And with the coming of 6* champions it's not looking good. If you reading this Kabam don't wait for everyone to through a upset and have majority of spenders giving up on the game. It's becoming harder and harder to find guys willing to spend in this game. A few retired already just from hearing about 6 stars.

Even though the maps are longer there aren't actually any more nodes so clearing itself hasn't really changed, 6 stars won't be used as defenders for more than a year since most defenders are only good duped and with a pool of 24 no one is going to be putting 6 stars on defence unless mordo is in the crystals and even then very few people would have them. T2 alphas are already getting a lot more available so when they change the AW rewards I expect them to add them in then

HoidCosmere

Goken2345 wrote: »

My only problem is with no defender kills. The only benefit I see to that is padding Kabam's bottom line by more people buying revives and potions.

I agree with this, but you have to expect them to make a change that earns them more money. At least they didn't allow for unlimited item use.

Amonthir

They have already stated that Limbo will not be affected by the Increased Energy Nodes. Any Debuff placed by a special will be though, such as TJF's Shock or IceMan's Coldsnap.

Mcord11758

Amonthir wrote: »

They have already stated that Limbo will not be affected by the Increased Energy Nodes. Any Debuff placed by a special will be though, such as TJF's Shock or IceMan's Coldsnap.

They also said you would not see buffet and masochism on the same node in act 5.2

Amonthir

Mcord11758 wrote: »

Amonthir wrote: »

They have already stated that Limbo will not be affected by the Increased Energy Nodes. Any Debuff placed by a special will be though, such as TJF's Shock or IceMan's Coldsnap.

They also said you would not see buffet and masochism on the same node in act 5.2

Yeah, but we can't accurately yell at them for the upcoming Limbo-fest unless it actually occurs. We do have to give their words some face value, otherwise there's no point in even reading anything they say or responding, and just being surprised when the game changes =P

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HoidCosmere

Battle626 wrote: »

I think it is hilarious that they removed defender kills. Basically, you are getting rewarded for being a bigger spender. If there are no defender kill points, there is no deterrent from spending to win. So, even though you may be more skilled than your opponents, all your opponents have to do is open up their wallets and beat you. That right there, is the biggest con to the change Kabam is making. This is no longer alliance war, it's more like alliance wallet war.

While I mostly agree, I think it would be a better use of their money to buy the shard deals than spend it on revives for a war. Maybe we can just hope people make rational monetary decisions?

NinjAlan

HoidCosmere wrote: »

Battle626 wrote: »

I think it is hilarious that they removed defender kills. Basically, you are getting rewarded for being a bigger spender. If there are no defender kill points, there is no deterrent from spending to win. So, even though you may be more skilled than your opponents, all your opponents have to do is open up their wallets and beat you. That right there, is the biggest con to the change Kabam is making. This is no longer alliance war, it's more like alliance wallet war.

While I mostly agree, I think it would be a better use of their money to buy the shard deals than spend it on revives for a war. Maybe we can just hope people make rational monetary decisions?

Thinks about rational monetary decisions, looks at counter full of fidget spinners, cries softly.

hobo

At the moment I like it

Kpatrix

I would like to think they took away defender kill points to even the battlefield between mismatched alliances, but really all I see is the bottom line; where a weaker team would give up because of the defender kill differential, now that is negated and it allows weaker alliances a chance to beat stronger ones by spending more. They should just let you buy points if that is their intention.

The addition of extra minibosses is also an issue, as it changes strategy, unless there is a reduction in the number of paths. Currently you can run 6 out of 9 paths to get a boss kill at the cost of exploration. I will wait to see the maps before making judgement, but the current setup funnels 4 players to the middle mini, and 3 each on the outer bosses. With 5 minis, that only allows 2 per mini on average. This just seams like a way to increase revenue.

I'm excited for the new maps, but like others have said, some champs have been ranked up for specific nodes, whether on attack or on defense. Just like 6*s, this feels like we are going to have to build new for war, and is directly related to people learning to overcome these things which has led to a reduction in sales, and on top of that we will have to be conscious of our teammates defenders so we can maximize points through diversity. This could be a good think as most people rank up certain champs for defense, and the maps are often saturated with the same 5 champs from everyone, what happens to all these champs now ? We will be penalized for multiple occurrences of the same champ that we don't use anywhere else but AWD.

Hopefully, we will be shown these new maps and nodes during the week war will be down in order to chose who each member can rank and use rather than going in blindly.

Finally, there is the issue of class detect masteries. Those of us who have invested in this will no longer see a benefit from them, making them useless, and just like pure skill they will be swept under the rug.

While war needed a change, I question a lot of these.

Shadow_roast

The increased energy dmg wouldn't benefit magiks or iceman unless they get limbo/place coldsnap by hitting u.
I think with the more minibosses there will be more players who can get them like they might change the 4 players to clear the middle thing or put 2 more minibosses there for each side path that end to the middle, alot we can expect, I'm really excited for this, only issue is removed pts from defender kills, so war will be about money based not skill based

Shadow_roast

Just a Q, in the current/old aw, timing out was counted as a defender kill?

Jon8299

Shadow_roast wrote: »

Just a Q, in the current/old aw, timing out was counted as a defender kill?

Yes it was.

MEŦAPħҰS

yall do realize there is already a place to discuss this on the forum?

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/17904/15-0-alliance-wars-update-discussion-thread#latest

Sungj

MEŦAPħҰS wrote: »

yall do realize there is already a place to discuss this on the forum?

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/17904/15-0-alliance-wars-update-discussion-thread#latest

Yes but there are so many responses its very hard to actual discuss these changes

Goken2345

But honestly that takes a huge portion of the strategy away from war then. It essentially becomes an Alliance quest against another alliance.

HoidCosmere wrote: »

Goken2345 wrote: »

My only problem is with no defender kills. The only benefit I see to that is padding Kabam's bottom line by more people buying revives and potions.

I agree with this, but you have to expect them to make a change that earns them more money. At least they didn't allow for unlimited item use.

weavile

bigger map does that mean we have to bring more defender?

Jon8299

No just more energy needed to finish the map. Reason why timers are 1-hour.

Jabbawokky

Since there are alot more fights, will attackers be able to take more than just 3 attackers , say like 5 apiece?

GroundedWisdom

Jabbawokky wrote: »

Since there are alot more fights, will attackers be able to take more than just 3 attackers , say like 5 apiece?

Same number as far as I know.

Slasherx44

The removal of defender kills is another shameless attempt by kabam to award big spenders. Considering how expensive alliance potions and revives are, the argument that you can still only use 15 items is complete garbage. All this change does is reward those to spend more, while offering no deterrent for constantly dying.

Still can't believe that alliance reward updates were not at the forefront of these changes. These have been outdated for a long time. Seriously, every time this game takes 1 step forward, it takes 2 steps back.

Coldfireknight

The concern on the enhanced energy node is that, while it's not SUPPOSED to affect coldsnap and limbo unless you're hit (meaning limbo shouldn't be affected at all), we're waiting to see if it actually works the way it should. Wouldn't be the first bug.
Buuuuut...wouldn't that mean your O Iceman would be better at dealing passive damage to that D Majik we're expecting to see everywhere? I mean, we're only expecting 10-20 per war map, right? Which could happen with 10 4* and 10 5*, but then you give up using them on O.