Dev Diary: Amping Up Alliances

Summoners!

We've got some big plans for the future of Alliance Quests and Alliance Wars! From QOL updates, to changes with AQ Timers, find out what's coming in the Future of Alliance Modes in our latest Dev Diary!

You can read it on our blog here!

Please Note: We are still collecting Feedback on Alliance War Nodes. There won't be any updates on those in here at this time.

Comments

Kaspy

I am really looking forward to the energy and node changes to AQ! This is a huge pro player move!

The thought the road map prelude mentioned adjustments to map 5 AI, but i dont see it mentioned here. Has that already happened?

I am also super excited for boss rush mode! I think that will be super fun!

Sounds like lots to look forward to with AW changes, but until we start seeing some of the changes implemented i think i will continue to sit out.

Doomsfist79

Hey there..
So.. with what was said about AQ time investment, would that not also apply to the war time investment? With that being said is the intention to apply the new AQ timer and energy start etc to war as well. Or basically nothing time wise has changed for at least 3 days a week as war time investment is still the same?

Lo4eath

Nice bit of changes. I'd like to think that they perhaps heard my feedback/idea and listened

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/100291/in-game-path-assignment-for-aq-aw#latest

DNA3000

I don't understand the logic of only starting with partial energy for AQ?

Why not just start with full energy, instead of the now current 3, and soon to be 4?
What is this meant to do, besides delay people needlessly?

I have a really good guess as to what the developers would say. They would say if you started with full energy, everyone would feel pressured to enter the map immediately so they didn't lose energy. I don't agree with this but I'm 99% certain that's what Kabam would say about that decision.

Mr_Platypus

Sounds like these AW changes won’t be in affect for a long while, which means those of us that tried to avoid the stress of ridiculous node combinations in tier 6 will be expected to fight said ridiculous nodes for what you’ve admitted to be pathetic gold rewards.

When’s the champions dev diary? Maybe that one will give some motivation to play.

unknown

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Rookiie

I was expecting the future of Alliance Quests and Wars to have more concrete content. But Kabam themselves summed it up: None of these principles have features attached yet, or any release dates. Is this the Alliance roadmap we deserved?

DNA3000

Bro what? Now when I emptied the Alliance Energy I could be free for like 4h 55m but now the timer is even reduced to 4h 25m to check again and again...... That'll create the pressure to move because I have energy, at least increase the energy cap to 10, please

I can't tell if this is serious or not, so I'm going to assume it is serious. First, the only reason to feel compelled to move when energy is full is because you don't want to waste energy. But under the new timer you have almost 25% more energy to complete the map. In effect we started with three and then got potentially 24 more energy one per hour. You can't really use the last one as it arrives when AQ ends, so you had 23+3=26 energy. If you slept eight hours, you'd lose an additional three energy as if you played efficiently and burned all your energy before you went to sleep you'd recharge five and then lose three. So your total energy budget was 23 energy. (I suspect we start with three to counterbalance the three we lose over an eight hour sleep period).

Under the new AQ energy rules, we will start with four, we cap at six, and we recharge in 45 minutes. That means our daily energy budget gives us 24 / 0.75 = 32 energy from the timer, plus 4 to start, equals 36. Once again, call that 35 as you can't use the last one. Over an eight hour sleep period we would gain 8/.75 = 10.7 ~ 11 energy, we'd cap at six and lose 5. So our total energy budget is now 30. Net, players have gained seven points of energy.

Whatever reasons people have for believing they should now use energy faster and more frequently, they are wrong. This isn't Brewsters Millions: you don't get credit for using more energy. You just have to complete the map. You now have more energy, and you get it faster. This is 100% an advantage for all players everywhere under all conditions so long as they don't completely use their minds and just play reasonably. Anyone who turns this into a negative is doing it to themselves, and I recommend they avoid doing that out of their own self-interest.

KnightZero

Bro what? Now when I emptied the Alliance Energy I could be free for like 4h 55m but now the timer is even reduced to 4h 25m to check again and again...... That'll create the pressure to move because I have energy, at least increase the energy cap to 10, please
I can't tell if this is serious or not, so I'm going to assume it is serious. First, the only reason to feel compelled to move when energy is full is because you don't want to waste energy. But under the new timer you have almost 25% more energy to complete the map. In effect we started with three and then got potentially 24 more energy one per hour. You can't really use the last one as it arrives when AQ ends, so you had 23+3=26 energy. If you slept eight hours, you'd lose an additional three energy as if you played efficiently and burned all your energy before you went to sleep you'd recharge five and then lose three. So your total energy budget was 23 energy. (I suspect we start with three to counterbalance the three we lose over an eight hour sleep period).

Under the new AQ energy rules, we will start with four, we cap at six, and we recharge in 45 minutes. That means our daily energy budget gives us 24 / 0.75 = 32 energy from the timer, plus 4 to start, equals 36. Once again, call that 35 as you can't use the last one. Over an eight hour sleep period we would gain 8/.75 = 10.7 ~ 11 energy, we'd cap at six and lose 5. So our total energy budget is now 30. Net, players have gained seven points of energy.

Whatever reasons people have for believing they should now use energy faster and more frequently, they are wrong. This isn't Brewsters Millions: you don't get credit for using more energy. You just have to complete the map. You now have more energy, and you get it faster. This is 100% an advantage for all players everywhere under all conditions so long as they don't completely use their minds and just play reasonably. Anyone who turns this into a negative is doing it to themselves, and I recommend they avoid doing that out of their own self-interest.

This. Basically what we've been talking about all the time.
Pleased with the energy changes. Would prefer a larger cap or higher initial energy, but it's better than the usual.
Rest pretty much looks like words on a page, so not going to comment till they're done. Like the help all and path change part.

RogerRabs

It's incredible that the words Potion and Revive do not appear once in your roadmap.

The potion system has long been broken and the "fix" you guys implemented a few months back (introduction of better, unit only Alliance potions) was an absolute dud of a feature.

This needs immediate attention. If you die in AQ/AW and wanted to fully heal a champ it could take you over 1250 Glory to heal the roughly 30k health that a R5 champ has. Hell you could easily end up using 1k Glory worth of potions in a War where you never get hit just to heal block damage. It's unsustainable and diverts resources away from ranking up Champions.

Billie

The changes are only significant for high tier players, and even then, fail to address most of the concerns in a real way. The war rewards are so bad for mid tier players. A gold 1 alliance and under gets meaningless rewards - no 6 star shards for most and not even a full 5 star for a whole season makes war pointless. This an easy fix and I can’t comprehend why it’s not done or why Kabam advertised new rewards when they were ignoring most of the players. Most of the changes are superficial in nature which is disappointing. There is nothing about mastery which is also disappointing. I hope they address it in a later post but based on the roadmaps so far, I am not optimistic that they will address the costs of changing mastery.

RogerRabs

Bro what? Now when I emptied the Alliance Energy I could be free for like 4h 55m but now the timer is even reduced to 4h 25m to check again and again...... That'll create the pressure to move because I have energy, at least increase the energy cap to 10, please
I can't tell if this is serious or not, so I'm going to assume it is serious. First, the only reason to feel compelled to move when energy is full is because you don't want to waste energy. But under the new timer you have almost 25% more energy to complete the map. In effect we started with three and then got potentially 24 more energy one per hour. You can't really use the last one as it arrives when AQ ends, so you had 23+3=26 energy. If you slept eight hours, you'd lose an additional three energy as if you played efficiently and burned all your energy before you went to sleep you'd recharge five and then lose three. So your total energy budget was 23 energy. (I suspect we start with three to counterbalance the three we lose over an eight hour sleep period).

Under the new AQ energy rules, we will start with four, we cap at six, and we recharge in 45 minutes. That means our daily energy budget gives us 24 / 0.75 = 32 energy from the timer, plus 4 to start, equals 36. Once again, call that 35 as you can't use the last one. Over an eight hour sleep period we would gain 8/.75 = 10.7 ~ 11 energy, we'd cap at six and lose 5. So our total energy budget is now 30. Net, players have gained seven points of energy.

Whatever reasons people have for believing they should now use energy faster and more frequently, they are wrong. This isn't Brewsters Millions: you don't get credit for using more energy. You just have to complete the map. You now have more energy, and you get it faster. This is 100% an advantage for all players everywhere under all conditions so long as they don't completely use their minds and just play reasonably. Anyone who turns this into a negative is doing it to themselves, and I recommend they avoid doing that out of their own self-interest.

I feel like this is like someone turning down a raise because they'd have to pay more in taxes

DNA3000

Previously, we’ve mentioned that Alliance War maps were not designed to be 100% completed. This philosophy came about in a time where many Wars resulted in ties and results came down to Diversity. In response, we increased the challenges and complexity in Alliance Wars. Today, we’re seeing that this has been pushed too far – this is a problem. While our goal was to increase granularity to avoid ties, the result was continuously pushing difficulty higher. We understand that this isn’t sustainable and are looking into different solutions in order to achieve our goal!

Way, way, way back when AW was being "adjusted" in the Issue 14-16 period, this came up. Back then I said something that I still don't know why it has never been acknowledged or implemented. It seems so incredibly obvious that either I'm an idiot, or the Kabam devs have a massive blindspot to it. If you're concerned about ties, then why, in *years* of AW development, have you never, ever, EVER attempted to implement a tie breaker for war?

Kabam described defender diversity as a "tie breaker." It is not a tie breaker. It is a scoring option. Calling defender diversity a tie breaker is like calling field goals in the NFL a tie breaker. Diversity might decide a war, but it is not a tie breaker. A tie breaker is something that only comes into play in the event of a tie. The shoot out in soccer is a tie breaker. In the NFL, there are rules that determine who goes into the playoffs if multiple candidate teams have the same win/loss record. Those are tie breakers.

Alliance war has never had a tie breaker. We let both sides fight the war, and if and only if there is a tie score we look at this thing, and which ever alliance has the better version of that thing wins. If it is still a tie, we look at a second tie breaker. But if the war is won or lost on the battlefield none of these things matter. That would be a tie breaker.

I think tie breakers could have prevented a lot of misery.

unknown

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RogerRabs

Way, way, way back when AW was being "adjusted" in the Issue 14-16 period, this came up. Back then I said something that I still don't know why it has never been acknowledged or implemented. It seems so incredibly obvious that either I'm an idiot, or the Kabam devs have a massive blindspot to it. If you're concerned about ties, then why, in *years* of AW development, have you never, ever, EVER attempted to implement a tie breaker for war?

Kabam described defender diversity as a "tie breaker." It is not a tie breaker. It is a scoring option. Calling defender diversity a tie breaker is like calling field goals in the NFL a tie breaker. Diversity might decide a war, but it is not a tie breaker. A tie breaker is something that only comes into play in the event of a tie. The shoot out in soccer is a tie breaker. In the NFL, there are rules that determine who goes into the playoffs if multiple candidate teams have the same win/loss record. Those are tie breakers.

Alliance war has never had a tie breaker. We let both sides fight the war, and if and only if there is a tie score we look at this thing, and which ever alliance has the better version of that thing wins. If it is still a tie, we look at a second tie breaker. But if the war is won or lost on the battlefield none of these things matter. That would be a tie breaker.

I think tie breakers could have prevented a lot of misery.
I've also never understood why a tie counts as a loss for both teams. If they didn't want to do tiebreakers, which I think is a superior option, they could also just split the Win bonus and be on their way.

iLongo

Raid Bosses sound fun. I like the idea of the whole alliance going to town on a 100 mil health boss.

Curious to see how'd they implement this. One fun and interesting idea would be to create a boss that can not be killed. Each Alliance member has to at least enter the raid/battle at least once. You take on the fight and see how much damage you can deliver to the boss. Rank each alliance members fight and hand out rewards based on who delivered the most damage.

Would even be interesting to see if they can do something like this for AQ Bosses as well. Gives you more of a team effort instead of that one boss killer that always takes down the AQ boss.

@Kabam Miike Is the Champions Roadmap delayed because this one was delayed?

Crys23

So, when are bases coming out? 😃

In all seriousness, good changes and improvements, lets hope you follow through on all and they wont cause more problems than they solve.

Twi things i was dissapointed I didnt see:
1. No mention of masteries presets or similar mechanism to make changing masteries easier.
2. Arena play improvements like requesting help to clear champs to avoid scrolling and locking the champ/class filters between series. Once i select 5* all I want to see is just my 5*'s until I reset the filter.

pseudosane

one thing i did not see was amping up potions. Such a crucial part of alliance play.

Gamer

So, when are bases coming out? 😃

In all seriousness, good changes and improvements, lets hope you follow through on all and they wont cause more problems than they solve.

Twi things i was dissapointed I didnt see:
1. No mention of masteries presets or similar mechanism to make changing masteries easier.
2. Arena play improvements like requesting help to clear champs to avoid scrolling and locking the champ/class filters between series. Once i select 5* all I want to see is just my 5*'s until I reset the filter.

Considering the mastery’s might be one the part 4 since that wil be QOF change but we do not ikow

Carmel1

the small things like reduced timer in AQ\ undo steps and so on are nice because i don't see how they can mess it up.
but regarding the bigger things like changing nodes, new game play etc... they lost my trust after what I happened with AW season 19.

by the way, the attacker tactic is a great example how they took a great idea and turn it into nothing... the attackers buffs are so useless, like using EXP boost after level 60.

LeagueOfShadows

What about the number of lanes in Map 6, especially for sections 2 & 3?

Currently, there's 9 paths for section 2 and 10 for section 3. I can't speak for everyone but some people do actually like going on vacations/holidays, and the last thing that they want to do is to have to check in on their phone to move.

I feel like you should have at least reduced the number of lanes by 1 in those sections. There's really no reason to have 10 lanes in section 3. Ideally, it would be great if you could just max the lane count at 8. Make them more challenging or slightly longer if needed.

This would help to solve the problem of people having to feel like they need to leave the alliance since they know that they won't be logging in because they rather have fun doing things in real life. This would also solve other issues to a degree that's frowned upon... just my two cents!

DNA3000

Way, way, way back when AW was being "adjusted" in the Issue 14-16 period, this came up. Back then I said something that I still don't know why it has never been acknowledged or implemented. It seems so incredibly obvious that either I'm an idiot, or the Kabam devs have a massive blindspot to it. If you're concerned about ties, then why, in *years* of AW development, have you never, ever, EVER attempted to implement a tie breaker for war?

Kabam described defender diversity as a "tie breaker." It is not a tie breaker. It is a scoring option. Calling defender diversity a tie breaker is like calling field goals in the NFL a tie breaker. Diversity might decide a war, but it is not a tie breaker. A tie breaker is something that only comes into play in the event of a tie. The shoot out in soccer is a tie breaker. In the NFL, there are rules that determine who goes into the playoffs if multiple candidate teams have the same win/loss record. Those are tie breakers.

Alliance war has never had a tie breaker. We let both sides fight the war, and if and only if there is a tie score we look at this thing, and which ever alliance has the better version of that thing wins. If it is still a tie, we look at a second tie breaker. But if the war is won or lost on the battlefield none of these things matter. That would be a tie breaker.

I think tie breakers could have prevented a lot of misery.
I've also never understood why a tie counts as a loss for both teams. If they didn't want to do tiebreakers, which I think is a superior option, they could also just split the Win bonus and be on their way.

It doesn't technically count as a loss, because there's no loser rewards. It doesn't count as a win, so neither side gets the winner rewards. The other rewards are participation rewards you get just for showing up.

If it counted as a loss on both sides, both sides would lose rating and fall in tier. But both sides neither gain nor lose rating in the event of a tie.

Should they split both the winner rewards and the winner points bonus in the event of a tie? It is not something that bothers me a lot overall, but I wouldn't be opposed to doing that either, except for the small problem of collusion. Both sides could elect to generate a tie and take the bird in the hand over risking the win/loss shot.

ItsDamien

A lot of this is still fluff. A lot of hopes and dreams, but this time with even fewer timelines for things to happen.

The next Dev Diary is just going to be: "We have champs coming out for the next few years, can't say who or when they'll be out. Also reworks, but that'll happen when ever we get to work on them, maybe in the next two years, but idk, could be longer!"

A lot of promises have been given today. We've had a lot of promises in the past that never came to fruition either.

DianaPrince

No rewards change?? My alliance is done with AW, maybe some members done with this game too

FrankCYoung

Seems like a welcomed addition if it works the way it should 👍🏻

Chimpyboy

As someone who has been an officer in 3 different Gold 1/2 alliances, this part scares the hell out of me. To be brutally honest, every alliance except maybe the "best of the best" have those handful of guys who really just need to be led by the hand and told what to do. They might be skilled players, but strategy and big picture stuff isn't in their wheelhouse. Or they simply don't have the history in the game to realize the downsides to their decisions.

Please do not enable an individual player to be able to make a strategic choice that will either make or break a war, or cause some kind of subsequent penalty/debuff to be put on their teammates.

Between getting players to log in and clear their paths and constantly nagging everyone to read chat and coordinate better - officers don't need the additional worry that player X, Y, or Z "going rogue" and doing something we don't want them to do.

Sure - we can always keep booting people until we find the perfect blend of skill and decision-making, but the grind of AW has already made recruiting an insufferable slog...when we find someone who can play, unless they are a complete jerk to everyone, we prefer to just keep them.

o_o

TL:DR version: “Changed many things, really. In a global sense, streamlining, the whole ongoing enterprise of it.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DtR3Oyq5a8

DNA3000

No rewards change?? My alliance is done with AW, maybe some members done with this game too

The announcement does include a statement about rewards changes, at least in general.

In Season 19, we added more rewards in the top tiers (relative to others) with the introduction of new and re-tuned Defense Tactics.

Something that we’re looking into for the near future is how our Season rankings are bracketed. That being said, all ranks will see a bump in Alliance War Season rewards, and we are committed to updating rewards on a more regular cadence to ensure that they remain relevant and valuable.

We will continue to make regular updates to Season Rewards moving forward

Having said that, I think increasing rewards while AW is still a glowing nuclear dumpster fire isn't necessarily a step forward, it just compels more players to play a mode they hate lest they miss out on those rewards.

RogerRabs

Way, way, way back when AW was being "adjusted" in the Issue 14-16 period, this came up. Back then I said something that I still don't know why it has never been acknowledged or implemented. It seems so incredibly obvious that either I'm an idiot, or the Kabam devs have a massive blindspot to it. If you're concerned about ties, then why, in *years* of AW development, have you never, ever, EVER attempted to implement a tie breaker for war?

Kabam described defender diversity as a "tie breaker." It is not a tie breaker. It is a scoring option. Calling defender diversity a tie breaker is like calling field goals in the NFL a tie breaker. Diversity might decide a war, but it is not a tie breaker. A tie breaker is something that only comes into play in the event of a tie. The shoot out in soccer is a tie breaker. In the NFL, there are rules that determine who goes into the playoffs if multiple candidate teams have the same win/loss record. Those are tie breakers.

Alliance war has never had a tie breaker. We let both sides fight the war, and if and only if there is a tie score we look at this thing, and which ever alliance has the better version of that thing wins. If it is still a tie, we look at a second tie breaker. But if the war is won or lost on the battlefield none of these things matter. That would be a tie breaker.

I think tie breakers could have prevented a lot of misery.
I've also never understood why a tie counts as a loss for both teams. If they didn't want to do tiebreakers, which I think is a superior option, they could also just split the Win bonus and be on their way.
It doesn't technically count as a loss, because there's no loser rewards. It doesn't count as a win, so neither side gets the winner rewards. The other rewards are participation rewards you get just for showing up.

If it counted as a loss on both sides, both sides would lose rating and fall in tier. But both sides neither gain nor lose rating in the event of a tie.

Should they split both the winner rewards and the winner points bonus in the event of a tie? It is not something that bothers me a lot overall, but I wouldn't be opposed to doing that either, except for the small problem of collusion. Both sides could elect to generate a tie and take the bird in the hand over risking the win/loss shot.

That's true, I ignored the implications of Win/Loss outside of season points. Tiebreakers seem to be the simplest, so maybe they should just listen to you and go with that.

unknown

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