Without defender kills, wars are just a showcase for how many unique defenders one can put in. Many of the wars in my alliance's range (war rating in the 900-1100) will have 3* champs and rank 3 unduped 4* just so they can max out diversity. Who wants to fight 3* champs with their rank 5 4*? It's going to be silly.
But to be honest, even with defender kills, I'm assuming your war tier didn't turn on defender kill points. Defender killls really only mattered at the top tiers and an occasional war outside of that top tier. The defender kill points were removed for exactly the reason you post--it's a way to force you to put in "different champs" regardless of their quality in order to have a chance at winning wars
If someone in my alliance buys a crystal and gets a new champ, then there is no point in me doing the same as only one of us can place it. There may be some exceptions, but even in arena, what's the point in going for basics anymore ? If it's a good defender, someone already has it and is using it, and since we have to use diverse champs on defense, we won't be able to rank any new one ups because we will be using our resources on the trash champs to get them as highly rated as possible for max defender rating.
If they think this will increase crystal sales, they are dead wrong. The only thing that increases diserability is usability, and if you aren't going to be using them, then no point in pushing for them. You just wait on RNG in regular crystals.
@Run477 your logic is confusing, you advocate removing nodes that are just straight item sinks, (Which I agree) and but then criticize the alternative. You still have yet to lay out exactly what you want in an AW design that will make you happy.
And you attack me? Why? because you think I am insinuating that everyone else is dishonest by my post title? I don't care if you are offended by my post title, but I am sorry for you that your feelings are hurt so easily.
How about you lay out what you want, instead of just attacking me. I am the leader of a top 150 ally. We could be higher if we chose to spend more, but we don't.
Kabam wants to make money, and Players want to have fun playing the game. Show me your AW proposal that accomplishes both, instead of just complaining about changes.
Without defender kills, wars are just a showcase for how many unique defenders one can put in. Many of the wars in my alliance's range (war rating in the 900-1100) will have 3* champs and rank 3 unduped 4* just so they can max out diversity. Who wants to fight 3* champs with their rank 5 4*? It's going to be silly.
Question: Who wants to fight a war filled with mystic champs?
If it's not Magik, it's Nightcrawler, Hyperion, Hood, Mordo, Dorammau, Spider-Man, Iceman. Defender kills didn't show any skill or strategy to alliance war. And at the 1100 range I know damn well every war boss is a nightcrawler. You can only fight a hero so much before you say enough is enough.
The reason it was the "same champs" was bc that's how kabam designed the game. Some champs were for offense and some champs were for defense (some were for both and some just sucked). Now we get all of these sucky champs to place on defense. Yea for diversity!
(Ps man I would have loved to have been facing nightcrawler bosses--we always had magik or dorm--magik became easy after AA was introduced though)
Without defender kills, wars are just a showcase for how many unique defenders one can put in. Many of the wars in my alliance's range (war rating in the 900-1100) will have 3* champs and rank 3 unduped 4* just so they can max out diversity. Who wants to fight 3* champs with their rank 5 4*? It's going to be silly.
But to be honest, even with defender kills, I'm assuming your war tier didn't turn on defender kill points. Defender killls really only mattered at the top tiers and an occasional war outside of that top tier. The defender kill points were removed for exactly the reason you post--it's a way to force you to put in "different champs" regardless of their quality in order to have a chance at winning wars
there are better ways to implement a more diverse defense without removing the main skill factor of alliance war.
The biggest kick in the nuts is the waste of the t2a on defense. Building your entire roster for years to have one of your 3 4/55 completely gutted is absolutely crushing. The resources, time and effort spent is significantly more than just rolling a crystal and them nerfing a champ. Everyone with 4/55 defensive characters is just shaking their heads at this stupidity.
Personally I think the solution is to make the nodes about 2 or 3 times harder. Make winning wars about who gets the most exploration and boss kills again. Of course this will probably never happen.
It is funny how kabam threw a fit last year when alliances would agree to place 2/3 stars so they locked down who you are facing so we would place a strong of champs as possible to force opponent to try to spend. Now they are encouraging us to place lower champs and are attempting to get money by forcing players to have to complete solo lanes and face 5 mini bosses.
lets complain about fighting the same champs over and over like magik, mordo, nc, spidey.. kabam fixes that now lets complain about champion diversity... typical
It is not a complain about diversity point. that is a nice introduction. It is a complain about our resource: we rancked up accordantly to the old rules. now those rules are gone and there is no point placing 5 mordo, 5 magik, five nc and so on.
Read the discussion and reply accordantly, not just for a +1 in your post numbers
the strong champs don't matter cuz the war nodes are garbage.. just put in different champs for diversity points they don't need to be rank 5 so don't worry about it
They do need to be high ranked if you want to win though. If everyone uses diverse champs and clears the maps, then defender rating will win.
I don't see how diversity points are unfair... Instead of placing the same champs over and over you are now being asked to look at your entire roster and utilize all your champs instead. How's that unfair? Am I missing something?
how yall figure ? just put 4/40 champs in they don't need to be rank 5 for the diversity points.. rank 4 or rank 5 defenders aint stopping anynody now.. if anything we are saving resources now since its easy as hell to 100% these maps without items or units.
We just won a War 100% to 99%, We had less diversity and 167 defender kills compared to 93. So by all metrics we "outskilled" them in tier 1. Yet if they would have taken down the last boss at the end they 100% for sure would have won. But it came down to a point where we had to spend a little to try to steal the war at the end in hopes the clock runs out. A combination of strategy and skill and money. If they would have just spent and took out 3 bosses, we wouldn't have tried, but they didn't want to spend any more and we didn't want to spend any more. So although I hear the 100% to 100% argument, I just don't think that is as common as most think. In elite top tiers like the top 50 allys, the 100/100 issue is most definitely is an issue, but it is very hard to design game content that satisfies them as well as the vast majority of the player base.
My only guess is that the engineers for this game couldn't hang at tier 8 and re-wrote it so they can feel good about themselves one one of their many 90 minute breaks.
I think the unfair part people feel is how they may have had to rank up certain champs for previous aw set up especially if it is hard for someone to get resources to do so and now they may not be able to use their champs they worked hard or paid to rank for purpose.
Personally I think the solution is to make the nodes about 2 or 3 times harder. Make winning wars about who gets the most exploration and boss kills again. Of course this will probably never happen.
My two biggest problems with the changes are the following:
1. You have to place flat out terrible champs on defense to win. Of course defender kills don't count--who dies to spider Gwen and Luke cage anyway? It's worse now bc they have "fixed" the scoring so you have to place, literally, every diverse champ you have. I was at least Willing to give the per bg diversity scoring a chance. You can field a somewhat decent defense with 40-50 different champs. But it's flatly impossible to field a defense in all bgs using every champ kabam has created.
2. The nodes are too easy. more unblockable specials (and flare and even maybe scaled down bane) could give a new twist on wars and champs (I think bane would be a poor idea just bc it would essentially guarantee it's always Mordo, cwbp, or other champ that you really can't parry to effectively counter and consistently it).
What I don't like:
Diverse defenders across the whole alliance so that those that spend the most money on buying champs and crystals are guaranteed wins (again, great for kabam and I realize this is a business so that's their choice; frankly, I think it may be a smart move on their part as long as the people most addicted stay addicted)
The simplicity of the nodes. They take less skill than map 5 aq to traverse.
Seeing classes: I can't decide if I like this or not frankly. I think it makes tiles easier but I also think it makes science champs and diverse mystic much more viable bc u always have to be concerned about abomination/spidey or magik/dormamu/juggs with md. I have spent one item since the war changes (and solo'd every line). But that one item was bc I went into a limber tile with voodoo thinking it would be spidey...turned out to be hulk and I got intercepted once at the end.
So, there is clearly room for "diversity" in defense. I just think the way they have done it is awful. If you want to encrouage diverse defenders, make the nodes be beneficial and difficult with certain champs and include the diversity points as well.
But the changes they have made seem to be to simply punish alliances that spent considerable time and resources building defenses.
I quickly typed in some search items and didn't see much - Under the impression that the current state of AW is here to stay (my opinions aside) has anyone seen or created some form of shareable spreadsheet that an alliance can use to account for defender diversity? I think this might come in handy seeing that wars are essentially being won through placement. If anybody has even a rough version, this might be a great start for the community as we have some pretty smart guys who can put these things together quickly.
Edit: If there already is one, just a link to this would be helpful for me and I apologize for missing it through my first searches!
I think the unfair part people feel is how they may have had to rank up certain champs for previous aw set up especially if it is hard for someone to get resources to do so and now they may not be able to use their champs they worked hard or paid to rank for purpose.
But how's that kabam fault? If I took Mordo to R4 and R5 how can I blame my decisions on someone else? Also, majority of the people who ranked up champs was based on other players feedback. Yes, I ranked up Mordo, Dorm, Hood for defense and didn't use them the last war. Am I mad? No. If my alliance will win with diversity points and I could place other champs who are R5 or 4/40 I don't care. Like someone else stated in a previous post, how can they collect data on the champs we call garbage if they aren't used in every aspect of the game?
The problem is see with that is try to imagine a node that would make carnage better on defense then say magik. It would have to be something like hp/attack increased by up to 1000%. % increased based on how terribly designed the champion is.
I must admit when AW came out a year ago I hated it, I absolutely despised it and disliked the insta-death of some nodes, and the lack of decent difficulty curve. I hated the plethora of linked nodes, the faff of it all.
However, the game moves on, players adapt, I eventually accepted it and even learnt to enjoy some of it.
The new wars is a mixture of emotions:
I love the direction and ideas behind it, diversity of enemies, no inst-death kills from over-node crazyness, more fights. However , i feel the actual execution of all this isn't great.
Things I'd personally do different:
Compared from old wars to new it has got much easier, I feel some paths needed to get easier, but I was hoping with longer paths, nodes could gradually ramp up in difficulty. Rather than clearly defined easy and hard paths, a gradual increase in difficulty as you explored the map I'd prefer.
The linked nodes are a nightmare, even worse than before, at least they used to make sense. I'm waiting for hours to move, node 49 for instance is beyond irritating, to have to almost complete the entire left section just to unlock the middle lanes is not fun. I'd like all nodes removed other than 1 linked node per section to each outside lane from the center, and then the boss nodes still linked. No way someone can breeze through the map on their own, but no intricate back and forward node unlocking asking me to be online waiting for someone else to move, not fun!! I need sleep! and yes maybe its better organisation needed, but i have a life and I don't want mcoc to ruin that.
Defender diversity, great idea, terribly done, can we just admit that some champs are absolutely pathetic defenders, if I ever get killed by a old man logan I need to quit. However, its still fun to kill him, why not increase war placement to 10 defenders each, makes room for diversity and the ever growing roster, make us do that ranking up we've been putting off, also solves my next problem
Too many nodes, not enough fights.
I don't want to sit in wars for hours bored, I also dont want to be harassed to take out nodes just when someone else decides they aren't busy, I want to be able to bang out 5 fights off the bat, go to bed then bang out another 5 the next day! fun! I dont need insane insta-death nodes to defeat me, hence me liking the new nodes, but they do make it pretty easy, but 14 fights against boosted defenders and I'll be struggling. Leave the map as it is, add another path with no linked nodes for an insane difficulty setting turned up to 11,purely optional for the crazy insane good guys, increase max energy held to 8, and let defenders be placed on every node of the map, no more using energy to move through a portal, no more waste of 3 energy just to move forward and use a portal and not get a fight.
Linked nodes to start the map, if nothing else please re-think the 1st section of linked nodes, it means 6 players have to be in the map before the central path is unlocked, for a multi-time-zone alliance this is a horror show, therefore you can't move more than 1 fight forward until everyone else is in. Definitely not fun, especially when its the hardest path. The 1st individuals in are the most hardcore and so should always be allowed to fight. The hard route should open up the easy route, not visa versa in my opinion.
Most of all for me its the match making and waiting. Cant an alliance set a map up, then once done click find a match, so the matchmaking doesn't match the alliances, but the already populated map difficulty. No hanging around, it could all be done in an hour!
I don't see how diversity points are unfair... Instead of placing the same champs over and over you are now being asked to look at your entire roster and utilize all your champs instead. How's that unfair? Am I missing something?
Not judging, just curious. How long have you been playing this game? I'm in the state where I have 13 r5 champs and they were all ranked up for aq/aw. I also spent a ton of time grinding for certain champs bc of war. I also get very few t4ccs. So, when people say it's unfair, I'm assuming it's people who have spent a year or more building their roster only to see kabam totally pull the rug out from under them.
@Run477 I agree with 90% of what you are saying.
It is too easy, I actually like diversity, but the trade off should be harder nodes. I think they are gathering data and will be changing accordingly, but I am pretty sure they wanted to approach it from the easier to harder side, vs. the harder to easier side.
I actually think they should have defender kills, but I also think you should be able to see both teams scores. I also think it shouldn't be a blind map at all, you should be able to see every champ, then making nodes harder would be mitigated slightly be the fact you know what is coming now just plan for it. It adds another strategy element.
I think the unfair part people feel is how they may have had to rank up certain champs for previous aw set up especially if it is hard for someone to get resources to do so and now they may not be able to use their champs they worked hard or paid to rank for purpose.
But how's that kabam fault? If I took Mordo to R4 and R5 how can I blame my decisions on someone else? Also, majority of the people who ranked up champs was based on other players feedback. Yes, I ranked up Mordo, Dorm, Hood for defense and didn't use them the last war. Am I mad? No. If my alliance will win with diversity points and I could place other champs who are R5 or 4/40 I don't care. Like someone else stated in a previous post, how can they collect data on the champs we call garbage if they aren't used in every aspect of the game?
The fact that they aren't used should be a pretty useful piece of data by itself.
The biggest difference between your post and the opinion of many here is that most of us don't have readily available replacements for these duplicate champs. If you have that many top ranked champs that you can just replace your 5 defenders with equally ranked up, diverse champs, then good for you but we don't so we're not happy.
Take affirmative action out of AW please. Not all champs are created equal for defense. Don't make people use offensive champs on defense to meet quotas.
The thing that they took out of war is skill. Now everybody can 100% and it's going to come down to how many different champs did you place. War is no longer a war of skill (given money trumped skill in some places before) but now how many different defenders did you place. War strategy is a joke. Strong champs are irrelevant and you don't need much skill for war.
The thing that they took out of war is skill. Now everybody can 100% and it's going to come down to how many different champs did you place. War is no longer a war of skill (given money trumped skill in some places before) but now how many different defenders did you place. War strategy is a joke. Strong champs are irrelevant and you don't need much skill for war.
The hardest part of war will be coordinating defenders
Please be aware that we currently have a thread open on AW Feedback. I understand being frustrated towards these changes and I'm sorry for those frustrations. I've merged a few threads to keep the forum organized, however, we want to keep all of your thoughts together so our teams have an easier time seeing what everyone is saying. Please head over to this thread:
Comments
But to be honest, even with defender kills, I'm assuming your war tier didn't turn on defender kill points. Defender killls really only mattered at the top tiers and an occasional war outside of that top tier. The defender kill points were removed for exactly the reason you post--it's a way to force you to put in "different champs" regardless of their quality in order to have a chance at winning wars
If they think this will increase crystal sales, they are dead wrong. The only thing that increases diserability is usability, and if you aren't going to be using them, then no point in pushing for them. You just wait on RNG in regular crystals.
And you attack me? Why? because you think I am insinuating that everyone else is dishonest by my post title? I don't care if you are offended by my post title, but I am sorry for you that your feelings are hurt so easily.
How about you lay out what you want, instead of just attacking me. I am the leader of a top 150 ally. We could be higher if we chose to spend more, but we don't.
Kabam wants to make money, and Players want to have fun playing the game. Show me your AW proposal that accomplishes both, instead of just complaining about changes.
The reason it was the "same champs" was bc that's how kabam designed the game. Some champs were for offense and some champs were for defense (some were for both and some just sucked). Now we get all of these sucky champs to place on defense. Yea for diversity!
(Ps man I would have loved to have been facing nightcrawler bosses--we always had magik or dorm--magik became easy after AA was introduced though)
there are better ways to implement a more diverse defense without removing the main skill factor of alliance war.
#BringBackDefenderKillPoints
They do need to be high ranked if you want to win though. If everyone uses diverse champs and clears the maps, then defender rating will win.
9 Quadrillion
@MadMarks I agree with ^^^this^^^
My two biggest problems with the changes are the following:
1. You have to place flat out terrible champs on defense to win. Of course defender kills don't count--who dies to spider Gwen and Luke cage anyway? It's worse now bc they have "fixed" the scoring so you have to place, literally, every diverse champ you have. I was at least Willing to give the per bg diversity scoring a chance. You can field a somewhat decent defense with 40-50 different champs. But it's flatly impossible to field a defense in all bgs using every champ kabam has created.
2. The nodes are too easy. more unblockable specials (and flare and even maybe scaled down bane) could give a new twist on wars and champs (I think bane would be a poor idea just bc it would essentially guarantee it's always Mordo, cwbp, or other champ that you really can't parry to effectively counter and consistently it).
What I don't like:
Diverse defenders across the whole alliance so that those that spend the most money on buying champs and crystals are guaranteed wins (again, great for kabam and I realize this is a business so that's their choice; frankly, I think it may be a smart move on their part as long as the people most addicted stay addicted)
The simplicity of the nodes. They take less skill than map 5 aq to traverse.
Seeing classes: I can't decide if I like this or not frankly. I think it makes tiles easier but I also think it makes science champs and diverse mystic much more viable bc u always have to be concerned about abomination/spidey or magik/dormamu/juggs with md. I have spent one item since the war changes (and solo'd every line). But that one item was bc I went into a limber tile with voodoo thinking it would be spidey...turned out to be hulk and I got intercepted once at the end.
So, there is clearly room for "diversity" in defense. I just think the way they have done it is awful. If you want to encrouage diverse defenders, make the nodes be beneficial and difficult with certain champs and include the diversity points as well.
But the changes they have made seem to be to simply punish alliances that spent considerable time and resources building defenses.
Edit: If there already is one, just a link to this would be helpful for me and I apologize for missing it through my first searches!
But how's that kabam fault? If I took Mordo to R4 and R5 how can I blame my decisions on someone else? Also, majority of the people who ranked up champs was based on other players feedback. Yes, I ranked up Mordo, Dorm, Hood for defense and didn't use them the last war. Am I mad? No. If my alliance will win with diversity points and I could place other champs who are R5 or 4/40 I don't care. Like someone else stated in a previous post, how can they collect data on the champs we call garbage if they aren't used in every aspect of the game?
However, the game moves on, players adapt, I eventually accepted it and even learnt to enjoy some of it.
The new wars is a mixture of emotions:
I love the direction and ideas behind it, diversity of enemies, no inst-death kills from over-node crazyness, more fights. However , i feel the actual execution of all this isn't great.
Things I'd personally do different:
Compared from old wars to new it has got much easier, I feel some paths needed to get easier, but I was hoping with longer paths, nodes could gradually ramp up in difficulty. Rather than clearly defined easy and hard paths, a gradual increase in difficulty as you explored the map I'd prefer.
The linked nodes are a nightmare, even worse than before, at least they used to make sense. I'm waiting for hours to move, node 49 for instance is beyond irritating, to have to almost complete the entire left section just to unlock the middle lanes is not fun. I'd like all nodes removed other than 1 linked node per section to each outside lane from the center, and then the boss nodes still linked. No way someone can breeze through the map on their own, but no intricate back and forward node unlocking asking me to be online waiting for someone else to move, not fun!! I need sleep! and yes maybe its better organisation needed, but i have a life and I don't want mcoc to ruin that.
Defender diversity, great idea, terribly done, can we just admit that some champs are absolutely pathetic defenders, if I ever get killed by a old man logan I need to quit. However, its still fun to kill him, why not increase war placement to 10 defenders each, makes room for diversity and the ever growing roster, make us do that ranking up we've been putting off, also solves my next problem
Too many nodes, not enough fights.
I don't want to sit in wars for hours bored, I also dont want to be harassed to take out nodes just when someone else decides they aren't busy, I want to be able to bang out 5 fights off the bat, go to bed then bang out another 5 the next day! fun! I dont need insane insta-death nodes to defeat me, hence me liking the new nodes, but they do make it pretty easy, but 14 fights against boosted defenders and I'll be struggling. Leave the map as it is, add another path with no linked nodes for an insane difficulty setting turned up to 11,purely optional for the crazy insane good guys, increase max energy held to 8, and let defenders be placed on every node of the map, no more using energy to move through a portal, no more waste of 3 energy just to move forward and use a portal and not get a fight.
Linked nodes to start the map, if nothing else please re-think the 1st section of linked nodes, it means 6 players have to be in the map before the central path is unlocked, for a multi-time-zone alliance this is a horror show, therefore you can't move more than 1 fight forward until everyone else is in. Definitely not fun, especially when its the hardest path. The 1st individuals in are the most hardcore and so should always be allowed to fight. The hard route should open up the easy route, not visa versa in my opinion.
Most of all for me its the match making and waiting. Cant an alliance set a map up, then once done click find a match, so the matchmaking doesn't match the alliances, but the already populated map difficulty. No hanging around, it could all be done in an hour!
Not judging, just curious. How long have you been playing this game? I'm in the state where I have 13 r5 champs and they were all ranked up for aq/aw. I also spent a ton of time grinding for certain champs bc of war. I also get very few t4ccs. So, when people say it's unfair, I'm assuming it's people who have spent a year or more building their roster only to see kabam totally pull the rug out from under them.
It is too easy, I actually like diversity, but the trade off should be harder nodes. I think they are gathering data and will be changing accordingly, but I am pretty sure they wanted to approach it from the easier to harder side, vs. the harder to easier side.
I actually think they should have defender kills, but I also think you should be able to see both teams scores. I also think it shouldn't be a blind map at all, you should be able to see every champ, then making nodes harder would be mitigated slightly be the fact you know what is coming now just plan for it. It adds another strategy element.
Make AW Great Again!
The fact that they aren't used should be a pretty useful piece of data by itself.
The biggest difference between your post and the opinion of many here is that most of us don't have readily available replacements for these duplicate champs. If you have that many top ranked champs that you can just replace your 5 defenders with equally ranked up, diverse champs, then good for you but we don't so we're not happy.
The hardest part of war will be coordinating defenders
Please be aware that we currently have a thread open on AW Feedback. I understand being frustrated towards these changes and I'm sorry for those frustrations. I've merged a few threads to keep the forum organized, however, we want to keep all of your thoughts together so our teams have an easier time seeing what everyone is saying. Please head over to this thread:
http://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/21312/alliance-war-feedback-merged-threads/p1