**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.
Comments
My greatest concern is not whether the change was enough to make it manageable. No. My concern is, was the change enough to put it on PAR with the other DTs difficulty wise? The reason I make mention of this is, will the change be enough dissuade Alliances from sticking to Flow over the rest of the DTs?
So far, it hasn't from what I've seen over the last 3 wars of the Off Season. The DT itself has become a bit more manageable, but that doesn't fix the problem of it being more effective than the rest. Theoretically, the DTs should be on par with eachother, that way it's not Siphon Wars, Flow Wars, Crush Wars, Dodge Wars, or Bulwark Wars. It's Alliance Wars with Defense Tactics. Note the plural of Tactics. Not Defense Tactic Flow. Now THIS, this is something I'd love to see in play. However, considering the ability to choose per BG, I would assume that it would work the same as the Modifiers per BG. So theoretically, across 3 wars, you'd have the ability to run 1 particular DT 3× acorss 3 days in 3 different BGs. So Day 1, BG1 runs X DT, Day 2 BG2, and Day 3 BG3. BG1 would have to run Y and Z on days 2 and 3, and so on. While this could potentially lead to at least 1 BG dealing with Flow per war, it ultimately would be better than 3 wars with 3 BGs loaded with Flow.
Knowing the general timeline that it takes for changes to occur in this game from past events, I wouldn't expect the above suggestion being brought to the team by Miike to occur this Season. However, I do feel (and would wager others feel this as well) that Flow needs another tweak before Season starts. It's pretty evident that it's still the dominate Defense Tactic and that doesn't bode well for a diverse and dynamic AW experience. It becomes monotonous, and droning. It takes the fun out of what used to be one of my favorite game modes.
I know that many have stated that AW as a whole needs an overhaul. A rework top to bottom, bow to stern. I'm starting to agree with this notion and it's becoming hard not to want such. Again, knowing the time it takes (especially these days) to make a major change such as this, I wouldn't expect it to occur until at the earliest, end of the year. So hopefully sometime this year a notable change in AW occurs.
Maybe not a full rework, but something that brings value and desirability back to Alliance Wars as a whole. Players that I've known for years now are getting tired of it all. It's sad because there's so much room for potential and growth in CoC. AW is just 1 aspect causing this (and will remain the focal point of this message). I implore Kabam to keep their ears and minds open when it comes to sound and logical feedback. The best place to start is balancing the Defense Tactics out and making them as equally useful as humanly possible.
The 2 that didn't see much usage back then (Siphon and Flow) were the ones that saw the greatest of increase in effectiveness. In an attempt to balance them, they kind of overshot the mark IMO. So without balance, there will always be 1 or 2 that get favored, and the rest left to the wayside. Which is unfortunate.
You have to be very trong mentally to stay with flow every season. And with a big wallet.
Do 2-3 hits. Back off. Parry or well timed block. And 2-3 hits again.
Its makes war super slow and annoying.
At least turn it down to 1 charge max (it would be like a "Spite" node) or turn it down from 45% to 15%.
That would still make it tricky yet it wouldnt feel opressive like it is now.
I know you wont change it before next season is over bc you need to "gather data".
Its frustrating that you need another whole season to gather data while we know the node is just bad.
They aren't deciding the outcome of wars, they have made war unenjoyable for the vast majority.
Obviously there will be some who don't necessarily enjoy Flow but take war seriously and keep pushing.
But if the sample of people in game who I know and stay in touch with is representative, there are a lot of Alliances who could be in lower tier 3, tier 4 and 5 that have deliberately tanked down to tier 6/7 so they can maybe enjoy the odd war and have a shot at winning enough to make G1 without spending all their Glory on potions and dealing with tier 5 and up BS nodes and defence tactics.
Unless you're ultra competitive it's a no brainer. G1 with practically no item use or platinum for a few extra shards but it will cost the shirt off your back and you'll probably hate it.
Flow on the other hand becomes more tricky. If the Ai gets super passive with Siphon, the charges fall off. Whereas if the Ai gets super passive with Flow, you get faced with risking trying to sneak a heavy attack in to break their block and bait them out of the corner. Which could result in a face full of combo, or you get ready to eat a S3 as their power bar spikes towards full. If the Ai goes extremely aggressive with Siphon, it can open the door to easy intercepts and avoiding block damage. Ai goes aggressive with Flow, that's as ideal as it gets for that DT so you can get your 2-3 hits in post parry/well timed block and setup to rinse, repeat.
Thing is, especially as of late, the Ai seems to go the route of passive and calculative play over aggressive. So Siphon becomes less impactful whereas Flow becomes more intense, even with the recent change (if they ain't swinging, no way to remove the stacks gained). Hence more and more Flow Wars becoming the norm. I do agree, and basically said this twice now, they definitely need to balance them all out. Naturally I would expect 1 to be a bit less ideal, and 1-2 being a bit more ideal. This isn't a bit more ideal though, Flow is far more ideal.
Whether DTs exist or not, there will always be problematic node/champ combinations in AW. This is pretty much known by anyone who runs T5+ (especially T3+). Throwing in a 3rd factor with the DTs needs to be carefully calculated and definitely need to take into consideration the worst of the worst (or best of the best depending upon how you look at things, lol). Sure the bulk of Flow defenders are laughable even with the DT. However, the ones that are effective, are EXTREMELY EFFECTIVE. So yes, there in lies the problem. Taking an already effective defender and juicing them up even more.
As such, I agree with some of the original ideas of either adding in a cooldown period, reducing the percentage gained per stack, or reducing the number of max stacks. Any one of those would balance the DT a bit more and perhaps steer Alliances towards changing things up a bit. Or the other suggestion where the DTs get weaker each time you utilize the same one inside the same cycle of war. That should be the end game here. Making it so 1 DT isn't favored above the other 4. The single change of removing the Stun requirement helped, but not nearly enough to inspire Alliances to switch things up IMHO.
We went through the entire Off Season fighting STRICTLY FLOW. Nothing else. Isn't that data enough? Shouldn't the data reflect the MASSIVE usage of Flow? The lack of diversity on the grids these days? Seriously, I haven't seen a full 150 diversity in AGES. We used to run it during the 1st incarnation of Siphon, in Tier 3. We ran it after they nerfed Siphon and Flow started to gain some traction. Then we fell back into Tier 4 due to the crazy Flow wars. Ever since the 1st cycle of AW last Season, we ditched diversity, ditched rotating DTs and built a Flow grid with repeats. As far as I can see, so did pretty much everyone else. Is that not data enough to prove that Flow is still too effective? It's time something notable be done. I'll admit, the change helped, just not nearly enough.