**WINTER OF WOE - BONUS OBJECTIVE POINT**
As previously announced, the team will be distributing an additional point toward milestones to anyone who completed the Absorbing Man fight in the first step of the Winter of Woe.
This point will be distributed at a later time as it requires the team to pull and analyze data.
The timeline has not been set, but work has started.
There is currently an issue where some Alliances are are unable to find a match in Alliance Wars, or are receiving Byes without getting the benefits of the Win. We will be adjusting the Season Points of the Alliances that are affected within the coming weeks, and will be working to compensate them for their missed Per War rewards as well.

Additionally, we are working to address an issue where new Members of an Alliance are unable to place Defenders for the next War after joining. We are working to address this, but it will require a future update.

Flawed Match Making

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Comments

  • QuikPikQuikPik Posts: 799 ★★★★
    @MrTicTac19992008 are you playing 1 or 2 BG wars? Anything less than 3 BGs has a much smaller pool of alliances.
  • battleonebattleone Posts: 286 ★★
    OP is spot on and did a great job assessing given the public data that is available. To all the nay sayers and doubters. We will have another piece of public data in a few days (alliance prestige in 25.3 release) that will make the assertions by OP much easier to validate. It will be crystal clear that prestige has way too much weight in matchmaking for war.

    Anyone with a numbers background and hands on experience in game knows OP’s assertions are accurate.

    All teams “around” a 3000 war rating should have an equal chance to be matched, not first an assessment of what “prestige bracket” they are in.... then matched Based on war rating.


    I raised this issue in season 8 or 9 and almost all of our matchups focus on prestige then war rating. I received the same type of counter arguments, sure there are outliers, but speaking in general statements OP is spot on. This system causes high skill low prestige alliances opportunities they would not have if they had to compete based on war rating alone.
  • battleonebattleone Posts: 286 ★★

    Gregdagr8 said:

    I've brought this up with many people in the community and they are also shocked. The only real comeback I've gotten is "well Kabam doesn't want unfair matchups". Why? That's life! That's how a tournament works! The best go to the top, the worst lose. If you are the best fighter in your 12M ally and never die, move to a better ally. Is it unfair every year in the NCAA tourney a 16 seed plays a 1 seed? No, it's life, get better or lose. This game mode was pitched to us as a fair tournament and it's obvious it's not.

    Well, in off season AW matchups, the system shouldn’t match two alliances with a 10-30 million gap in Prestige/AR. However, if the alliance is in Platinum 3-4 or Gold 1-2 during a Season, they should be matched with teams within their tier regardless of AR/Prestige difference. If they have the skill to be there, they shouldn’t have to worry about the lopsided matchup. Their defenders are not up to par in most cases, and they would need to play flawlessly. It is mostly about skill, but if they never face the other alliances that have a harder schedule they are being handicapped and are earning a spot they do not deserve.

    It is like a NCAA Division II Football Team going undefeated in their schedule and their fans complaining because they are not in a National Title match vs a Division I team. The Division II team has a much weaker schedule against weaker teams and doesn’t deserve the National Title. In almost most cases, the Division I team will crush the Division II with rare exception with Bowl Games where it was a lower than middle of the road Division I vs a top Division II. .
    Yeah I used the analogy of high schoolers vs pros but giving the same credit on the leaderboard. When I brought this up season 9 ish.
  • QuikPikQuikPik Posts: 799 ★★★★
    Case on point, today's matchup our war rating difference is more than 100 points but our prestige is pretty close. But there's an alliance a couple of spots ahead of us with almost the same war rating as us but their prestige is about 2500 lower than ours. Of course, we didn't get matched up against them because that would've made too much sense.
  • QuikPikQuikPik Posts: 799 ★★★★
    @Lainua Prestiged based match making
  • MadcatMadcat Posts: 385 ★★★
    Flawed is the fact that we have been paired against the SAME alliance this AW season (2 out of 6 pairings) twice! We are not even in Masters tier... should not be happening with hundreds of alliances in Platinum tiers.
  • MrTicTac19992008MrTicTac19992008 Posts: 566 ★★
    QuikPik said:

    @MrTicTac19992008 are you playing 1 or 2 BG wars? Anything less than 3 BGs has a much smaller pool of alliances.

    We play 3 BG
  • QuikPikQuikPik Posts: 799 ★★★★
    I'm going to update my list later in the week when alliance prestige is made public. Then people will start freaking out when they see so many 4-6k prestige alliances in platinum.
  • dr_nish777dr_nish777 Posts: 313 ★★
    But at least this system doesn't makes the rich more richer.
  • QuikPikQuikPik Posts: 799 ★★★★
    Not really, the top alliances are still in the top tiers. Nothing is going to prevent that which is fine because they have the resources, rosters, and skills to be in those positions.
  • PlantesanPlantesan Posts: 335 ★★
    It’s only when you have allies openly admitting to using a shell that makes it annoying. I get top guys find fighting the same teams over and over a pain, but that comes with the territory of being on top....

  • Perhaps they should just turn Seasons into TRUE ROUND-ROBIN TOURNAMENT each Season, consisting of 13 Alliances each, with qualifying positions within those brackets being based on previous season. At least for alliances down thru any of the Gold levels.

    So top 13 from one season/tournament get put together in TOP Round Robin Bracket for the next Season/Tournament, next 13 are in next bracket, etc, etc. all the way down the line. And you face EACH of the other alliances in that bracket exactly one time during that season/tournament.

    Instead of current TIER MULTIPLIER, there would be a Bracket-Wide Multiplier (everyone in that bracket gets same Multiplier, and then the next lower 13-Team bracket would have a slightly lower Multiplier, etc, etc all the way down.

    After Gold Level, then everyone else basically runs Seasons the way it is now, in one large pool, based on War Rating, Prestige, (or whatever else it’s based on)

    ** There would have to be an OPT-IN Period to sign up for next season, so that if an alliance were going to (or has) disband, they could be ignored from taking up a “dead” spot in the Bracket.
  • ...and alliances that only run 1BG or 2BG wars would also be put down into the current method General Pool matching method.

    But those 3BG Round Robin Tournament brackets would have specified rewards that would be above whatever any other lower “General Pool” alliance would be able to get. So no lower one would be able to sneak into better rewards, although it MAY qualify them to be part of the bracketed tournaments for the next season.
  • HksBindraHksBindra Posts: 38
    A guy who I rejected from joining my alliance coz he's stupid and not skilled just texted me with a picture showing master rank 14. :D
    I mean it's ridiculous how that alliance is anything above gold.
    But it's the way Kabam is matching wars.. They are definitely denying everyone below them one rank further in the chain.
    Have Kabam ever responded to if they are going to fix this issue??
  • ThecurlerThecurler Posts: 837 ★★★★
    There are definitely a few anomalies in the OP list but those aside, you would need to see what tier the alliances are competing to draw meaningful conclusions.

    All the OP list shows is where an alliance placed. It doesn't take account of number of BG's or number of wars fought.
  • QuikPikQuikPik Posts: 799 ★★★★
    There’s no way to rank that high in platinum or master without playing 3 BGs and having a high multiplier. You can go 12-0 in tier 8 running 3 BGs and still won’t make plat.
  • HksBindraHksBindra Posts: 38
    Suppose an alliance has war rating of 3000.
    And everyone who actually fought and brought that alliance to 3000 leaves.
    But before the last guy leaves, one guy with prestige of around 6000 joins that alliance and becomes leader.
    Now he adds 29 other members of prestige around 6000~7000.
    Now this alliance will be matched with other alliances of prestige around 6000~7000.
    But their war rating would not be 3000, it'll be around 1500~2000.
    What'll happen?? 1500~2000 war rating guys would be playing in Tier 2.
    Neither of them will finish the map in most cases, I have proof, where both alliances have given more than 150 deaths and just left the map. Both parties had defenders remaining.
    Anyway, this botched war would do the 3000 rating alliance benefit as they are definitely more versed in tier 2 than the unsuspecting first time tier 2 war playing alliance who got to be their unfortunate opponents.
    That's how they are getting season points, because the multiplier is still high.
  • QuikPikQuikPik Posts: 799 ★★★★
    I have updated my chart to show the prestige of each alliance for the top 50 in each tier from Gold 2 on up. This took a bit more time to compile as it's a lot more clicks to gather alliance prestige rather than alliance PI. I did this over the past 2 days while there was no movement in war rankings.

    Green represents the top prestige in that tier. Orange is an alliance that is 20-30% less than prestige than the top in that tier. Red represents 30% or more prestige difference from the top rated alliance in that tier. Yellow represents a 10-20% prestige difference but I only used it on the master rankings. While it is feasible for an alliance to beat another with a 10-20% prestige difference, these 2 alliance are under 9k prestige while everyone else in master is over 10k.



    All of the alliances are full and hence not likely to be recently exited shells. Typically shells in this range have alts that starts war only to lose in order to lower war rating.

    You can clearly see that match making heavily favors prestige. There's no way an alliance with 30% less prestige will beat a higher rated alliance. Take a 7k prestige alliance that is probably fielding a few R4 5* for defense versus a 10k prestige alliance that is placing mostly R5 and R4 for defense; I don't see that 7k alliance ever beating a 10k regardless of skill.

    Worst case is that 4330 prestige alliance near the top of Gold 1. You're telling me they are taking their R4 4* attack team and beating all these other alliances in that tier with R4/R5 defenders. That's just not happening if they were ever to be matched against one another.

    Kabam, you really need to take a hard look at your match making algorithm. Clearly this is only favoring the smaller prestige alliances that happen to be good at war. How does it make that 10481 prestige alliance sitting in Gold 2 feel seeing a 4330 prestige alliance ranked much higher than them.
  • MadcatMadcat Posts: 385 ★★★
    I'd love to be paired against a 6.2k PI Alliance in Platinum... instead... we have played against two different opponents... twice this season. Should be an algorithm modifier to prevent playing against the same alliance more than once per season within a division unless there is no one else.... which would only be the top Master's alliances.
  • Midknight007Midknight007 Posts: 764 ★★★
    When it comes to seasons, Prestige and Hero Rating should never be a part of matchmaking once brackets/tiers have been established. I can see War Rating being used in the first week in order to establish the brackets/tiers.

    If a team doesn’t have the roster to compete in against teams with the same War Rating, then their War Rating doesn’t adequately reflect their skill level. I know alliances complained about fighting alliances with large gaps between Prestige and Hero Rating, but that happens in open tournaments.

    I just can’t see a 4K-8K Prestige being able to compete unless they are able to flawlessly play against a team with a 10k+ Prestige. The R4 5* to R5 4* defense would be torn apart by most 10K Alliances with little to no effort.

    Meanwhile, their R4 5* and R5 4* offense would be up against a much harder climb. If they do win consistently, they obviously deserve to be in Platinum-Gold. However, that argument cannot be made if they are not fighting against their peers in their current bracket.

    I wish Kabam would at least comment about what the Developers have to say on this matter. No one is saying these teams shouldn’t be there, but more that the higher HR and Prestige teams don’t seem to be fighting these lower teams. We tend to only see our alliances pitted against really close Prestige and HR matches. It is leading to the perception that these teams are not truly earning their positions during Season game play.

    I really hope that Kabam at least speaks up about taking these concerns to the development team and shedding light on what is happening. The game doesn’t need more players becoming disheartened after investing so much time to the game in order to develop their skills and their rosters only to be overstepped by teams that they never have a chance to compete against and a harder schedule due to the matchmaking algorithm.
  • HksBindraHksBindra Posts: 38
    No reply from Kabam?? How typical.
  • HksBindraHksBindra Posts: 38
    @QuikPik I have war details of this season, of one of the alliances that are benefiting from this botched system. It's a video I got from a member of that alliance. It clearly shows war history and details. U can see that the opponents have not even cleared their map and left as many as 60 defenders standing on the map. The result? - they have skyrocketed in season rankings and are now platinum 1. I spoke to the player who provided me the video and he said they always get matched up against tier 4-5 players, and well like I said earlier, those low tier players can't play in the higher tier 2 when suddenly matched like this.
    Anyway, Let me know if you want the video and if it might help us win this battle with Kabam.
  • LJ_L1braLJ_L1bra Posts: 13
    Agree there’s a massive issue here. match making seems to be based on alliance prestige. So many higher alliances are struggling to stay in platinum while lower alliances sit there no issue. It’s fundamentally flawed when (all else being equal) an 9k prestige alliance has a higher war rating than a 10k. Yet if they got matched 10k beats 9k everytime. People will stop pushing prestige or give give up all togther. I seen solid p2 alliances drop to p4 and they are Fed up. This really needs looking at.
  • Darksun987Darksun987 Posts: 83
    edited February 2020



    A perfect example is couponing, stores would offer double up value on $0.50 coupons or less and allow multiple coupons. However, Extreme Couponing led to huge exploits, sales and these types of offers could lead to a customer getting paid to actual buy the items or getting a $3 item for $0.50. Seriously, I use to extreme coupon and I know how easy it could be done. The issue is that more and more people started doing it and it was becoming an issue with profits and the customer experience of bare shelves for others who didn’t take advantage.

    I hear what you're saying but the example you're giving is a bad example. A manufacturer issuing a coupon is paying that in real dollars to the retail company. If they allow for stacking then the only party "exploited" is the manufacturer who consciously issued those coupons for their own reasons. It's not an exploit or a bug it's how those coupons were designed to work. An exploit would be when a coupon scans for a product which is not indicated in the coupon. One of the primary reasons coupons are issued is exactly to clear the shelf of that product. Not a bug, not unethical, working as intended.
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