15.0 Alliance Wars Update Discussion Thread

Summoners!

Our 15.0 Update is just about a week away, and with it, it's bringing a huge change to Alliance Wars! Check out everything you need to know about the Brand New Map, Scoring Changes, and new boosts in the Loyalty Store here: http://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/17902/15-0-alliance-wars-update/

Comments

IAmNotUrMom

Mcord11758 wrote: »

IAmNotUrMom wrote: »

Mcord11758 wrote: »

Only rational I can see for rank down tickets is rank 4 5* champs like juggs, antman, Cyclops. People who have ranked these champs have now wasted their t2 alpha. There is no making up for that

If only Juggernaut or Antman could be used as a part of a special team that boosts critical damage for things like the Labyrinth of Legends. One can only dream...

So you are saying they are worth 4 t2a just for the synergy?

I use a 2* antman and it does what is needed to raise my starlord attack over 2100. Hardly worth ranking the 5*

Truthfully no. But it's a moot point when the topic of rank down tickets has been shut down.

UC439

Schodiac wrote: »

I believe that Rank down tickets are in order since our new defense teams will be based on mostly diversity instead of Defender kills.

Well, don't to how many valid arguments we'll need to provide to make kabam realize the need of RDTs now. They're constantly saying "no intentions of RDTs at the moemnt" in every other RDT thread in the forum. & closing those threads down.

Mcord11758

IAmNotUrMom wrote: »

Mcord11758 wrote: »

IAmNotUrMom wrote: »

Mcord11758 wrote: »

Only rational I can see for rank down tickets is rank 4 5* champs like juggs, antman, Cyclops. People who have ranked these champs have now wasted their t2 alpha. There is no making up for that

If only Juggernaut or Antman could be used as a part of a special team that boosts critical damage for things like the Labyrinth of Legends. One can only dream...

So you are saying they are worth 4 t2a just for the synergy?

I use a 2* antman and it does what is needed to raise my starlord attack over 2100. Hardly worth ranking the 5*

Truthfully no. But it's a moot point when the topic of rank down tickets has been shut down.

It is a moot point and I don't have either of those champs ranked. I don't see myself as needing rank down tickets. Just saying that would be only justification in my eyes

MadMarks

I like how people say they enjoyed watching their defenders take out the opposition in the old war format . . . no champion controlled by AI can take out one controlled by a real person, the only thing that made it challenging was the buffs Kabam put on the nodes. Which was totally arbitrary, I am sure they are already working on some sand traps so that 100% won't be possible anymore. Well it will go from possible to po$$ible

Anonymous

DD2 wrote: »

Sha59 wrote: »

You honestly telling me its more fun facing 10+ Magiks, 10+ Dorm, 10+ Iceman, throw in a few other mystic champs and maybe the odd NC and there is your AW D in a nutshell.

You know what was more fun?

Suiting up with your buddies and waging war against another alliance using champs that you put your blood, sweat, and tears into.

Getting a knot in your stomach after clicking "fight", wondering who you'll really go up against and if your choice of attacker was the right one.

Hands shaking, knowing that it's not just a quest or arena fight, knowing full well that any screws up mean giving points to the other team.

Watching in real-time with pleasure as your bad ass defenders turn the opposition into dust.

Watching with nervously with your team on LINE wondering who's going to take it. Was it enough? They don't seem like they're moving? Will they make a last minute rush? Everyone be on guard! Will they break through our defenders and heal up for the boss?? Watching down to the wire who's strategy paid off and who's didn't.

THAT WAS WAR.

What we have now is a participation trophy for lazy leeches.

Exactly, thank you. Great point

Amonthir

DD2 wrote: »

Sha59 wrote: »

You honestly telling me its more fun facing 10+ Magiks, 10+ Dorm, 10+ Iceman, throw in a few other mystic champs and maybe the odd NC and there is your AW D in a nutshell.

You know what was more fun?

Suiting up with your buddies and waging war against another alliance using champs that you put your blood, sweat, and tears into.

Getting a knot in your stomach after clicking "fight", wondering who you'll really go up against and if your choice of attacker was the right one.

Hands shaking, knowing that it's not just a quest or arena fight, knowing full well that any screws up mean giving points to the other team.

Watching in real-time with pleasure as your bad ass defenders turn the opposition into dust.

Watching with nervously with your team on LINE wondering who's going to take it. Was it enough? They don't seem like they're moving? Will they make a last minute rush? Everyone be on guard! Will they break through our defenders and heal up for the boss?? Watching down to the wire who's strategy paid off and who's didn't.

THAT WAS WAR.

What we have now is a participation trophy for lazy leeches.

Absofrigginlutely. War is now just a 'Need you to clear link' mode. That's it. I don't care how my Defenders are doing, I assume that they will simply roll over and die. The only thing I care about is seeing if opponent is perfectly diverse, and if they have a higher rating than us. If both are true, then we care even less.

Raganator

DD2 wrote: »

Sha59 wrote: »

You honestly telling me its more fun facing 10+ Magiks, 10+ Dorm, 10+ Iceman, throw in a few other mystic champs and maybe the odd NC and there is your AW D in a nutshell.

You know what was more fun?

Suiting up with your buddies and waging war against another alliance using champs that you put your blood, sweat, and tears into.

Getting a knot in your stomach after clicking "fight", wondering who you'll really go up against and if your choice of attacker was the right one.

Hands shaking, knowing that it's not just a quest or arena fight, knowing full well that any screws up mean giving points to the other team.

Watching in real-time with pleasure as your bad ass defenders turn the opposition into dust.

Watching with nervously with your team on LINE wondering who's going to take it. Was it enough? They don't seem like they're moving? Will they make a last minute rush? Everyone be on guard! Will they break through our defenders and heal up for the boss?? Watching down to the wire who's strategy paid off and who's didn't.

THAT WAS WAR.

What we have now is a participation trophy for lazy leeches.

I don't think its possible to excessively bump and quote this post.

Sha59

Your kind of making the EXACT point of what was wrong with the old war format.

I could name all 30 defenders in every single BG before you even started fighting...

No Champ worked well on Unblockable SP2 Node at the higher levels of AW, purely because the champ was not stun immune, and was basically just cannon fodder for 1 champ. I cannot comment on the lower wars.

The issue with the old war format at the top level was some of the utterly idiotic nodes that Kabam put on the Tier 1 AW Map, this they fixed on the new map, but also made some strange changes to the scoring system that you MAY or MAY NOT disagree with.

People asking for Rankdown tickets, seriously not understandable. Who do they want to rank down and for who?

Magik, Dorm, Hood are all A Grade mystics, and wouldnt be deranked.
Nightcrawler is mainly a defensive champ agreed, however can be great on offense
Antman ? Well there hasnt been a good science in forever so honestly your just gonna waste any science cats you get back on another useless science champ.
Tech Champs where barely placed in AW
Cosmic champs where barely placed in AW
Skill champs where barely placed in AW.

So who exactly do you want to rank down? some of the other mystic champs like Juggs, UC and so on?

Even seen people asking for a refund on Mystic Dispersion which is utterly ridiculous because of how good it is on the offensive end.

I can understand people being annoyed that they ranked for AW D and now kabam have made some changes to AW D. But as i have said before, this current format is way better than the boring oh look its another Magik, the 5th one on this path such fun.

Atleast you get to fight some champs you didnt fight in a while.....

Sha59

@Kabam Miike

can you please confirm what changes are happening in today's AW Start, as its going live in less than 2 hours.

Anonymous

@Sha59 I understand that some didn't like the old war format because of the multiple magiks and dorms placed everywhere and it seemed repetitive, but it's more the competitive nature of war that everyone was into. That made this game continually playable for a lot of people. I know you're in a top alliance and understand how things work. Many play the game to be on top of prestige, and that's fine. Others want a competition. They ranked their best defenders for that reason. I do, however, agree that rank down tickets are not necessary, just fix that part of the game.

Amonthir

Sha59 wrote: »

Your kind of making the EXACT point of what was wrong with the old war format.

I could name all 30 defenders in every single BG before you even started fighting...

No Champ worked well on Unblockable SP2 Node at the higher levels of AW, purely because the champ was not stun immune, and was basically just cannon fodder for 1 champ. I cannot comment on the lower wars.

The issue with the old war format at the top level was some of the utterly idiotic nodes that Kabam put on the Tier 1 AW Map, this they fixed on the new map, but also made some strange changes to the scoring system that you MAY or MAY NOT disagree with.

People asking for Rankdown tickets, seriously not understandable. Who do they want to rank down and for who?

Magik, Dorm, Hood are all A Grade mystics, and wouldnt be deranked.
Nightcrawler is mainly a defensive champ agreed, however can be great on offense
Antman ? Well there hasnt been a good science in forever so honestly your just gonna waste any science cats you get back on another useless science champ.
Tech Champs where barely placed in AW
Cosmic champs where barely placed in AW
Skill champs where barely placed in AW.

So who exactly do you want to rank down? some of the other mystic champs like Juggs, UC and so on?

Even seen people asking for a refund on Mystic Dispersion which is utterly ridiculous because of how good it is on the offensive end.

I can understand people being annoyed that they ranked for AW D and now kabam have made some changes to AW D. But as i have said before, this current format is way better than the boring oh look its another Magik, the 5th one on this path such fun.

Atleast you get to fight some champs you didnt fight in a while.....

Not much difference now, as I can look in the BG and straight up see the 6 Defenders at the end who may actually matter. Plowing through a field of random champs is mildly amusing, once. And then you realize it's just a random Story/Event quest map with the occasional node to plan for (Poison/Bleed), except it locks champs for 24 hours, and it has pretty much been decided the moment the opponent was chosen. Assuming Alliances are being smart and properly diversifying (not hard with separate diversity scores per BG), then it simply comes down to Defender Rating, and that's it. Do they have a single rank over you? You lost, grats.

This is not the right way to promote using different champs, and this is not the right way to handle the nodes on the maps. Return to old War Map and nodes, and each week, shuffle them around (subs/boss stay as they are). Take DNA3000's suggestion of Attacker-placed global debuffs. Now placing Defenders is not just 'ho hum diversity lol', nor is it MDMDMDMDMDMDMD Mystic Maaaaadness! And buff weaker champs so they are more viable on Defense.

LocoMotives

Kabam Miike wrote: »

Crammer2020 wrote: »

Kabam Miike wrote: »

Crammer2020 wrote: »

GREAT! 5 minis with the same 3 attackers on a much bigger map, means more revives needed! No defender kill points! BIG SPENDERS WIN EVERY WAR!!! FUNNN!!!!!

Bigger map doesn't mean that you'll be having more fights. There will be just as many Defenders as there were before.

ok, just as many defenders. But defender kills, in combo with 5 mini bosses means $$ wins every war. No more skill. Good job killing wars.

The goal with the removal of Defender kills wasn't to increase the use of Potions or Revives, but to relieve the feeling of defeat that comes with taking one shot at a defender, losing, and feeling that you're now helping the other Alliance, so you stop playing, even though you have 2 perfectly good attackers still there.

How about the "feeling of defeat" that comes with placing defenders and playing through a war that you know is already decided by diversity/defender rating? We no longer have control of the outcome, and I've never felt more defeated while playing this game. Even within AQ, we have more control by choosing our maps for the week. The joy is gone and all that's left is members pointing the finger if a single person messes up placement or misses a single node. But even perfection from the ally only guarantees we maximize our points, not that we have a chance to win.

JRock808

Kabam's complete inability to balance champions and/or mastery setups created the old war scenario.

It is not the player's fault that mystic champs were generally better(more useful in more areas) than other classes.
It is not the player's fault that Mystic Dispersion is completely insane, especially compared to the other class masteries. Pure skill had potential, but it's been broken since 12.0 with not a single word on fixing it.
It is not the player's fault that in order to win war they had to dedicate time, effort, money and/or resources to champions that may have a singular use, but they performed that role exceedingly well.

But who gets the short end after all of this? The players.

R4GE

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/136182#Comment_136182

JRock808

As a software developer, it's appalling.

You DO NOT DO iterative design in production, much less ANY design. Especially for something that people are expected to pay for.

Sha59

Anonymous wrote: »

@Sha59 I understand that some didn't like the old war format because of the multiple magiks and dorms placed everywhere and it seemed repetitive, but it's more the competitive nature of war that everyone was into. That made this game continually playable for a lot of people. I know you're in a top alliance and understand how things work. Many play the game to be on top of prestige, and that's fine. Others want a competition. They ranked their best defenders for that reason. I do, however, agree that rank down tickets are not necessary, just fix that part of the game.

The point is valid, however Top prestige guys mostly have the biggest rosters, most R5 4* and so on and so on.

It really doesnt bother me, old format, new format.

I find the new format far more enjoyable, we actually have to 100% the map now
Old format, only 4-5 alliances could even think about 100% our D, it just was not going to happen, unless they where dropping 1+ odin per member.

There is a balance i agree, but honestly i find it laughable that people are complaining about cheap, easy shards, but then moan about everything else in this game being expensive.

Like i said, the difference between Top Tier 1 wars and low level tier 1 and below is massive.

Grub

Sha59 wrote: »

Anonymous wrote: »

@Sha59 I understand that some didn't like the old war format because of the multiple magiks and dorms placed everywhere and it seemed repetitive, but it's more the competitive nature of war that everyone was into. That made this game continually playable for a lot of people. I know you're in a top alliance and understand how things work. Many play the game to be on top of prestige, and that's fine. Others want a competition. They ranked their best defenders for that reason. I do, however, agree that rank down tickets are not necessary, just fix that part of the game.

The point is valid, however Top prestige guys mostly have the biggest rosters, most R5 4* and so on and so on.

It really doesnt bother me, old format, new format.

I find the new format far more enjoyable, we actually have to 100% the map now
Old format, only 4-5 alliances could even think about 100% our D, it just was not going to happen, unless they where dropping 1+ odin per member.

There is a balance i agree, but honestly i find it laughable that people are complaining about cheap, easy shards, but then moan about everything else in this game being expensive.

Like i said, the difference between Top Tier 1 wars and low level tier 1 and below is massive.

This is exactly my point all these people complaining about wanting it more difficult and to have to use more potions will be the first ones to complain when and IF Kabam makes the current map way more difficult. At this point the difficulty of the map matches the rewards. Why would I spent hundreds or thousands of units in T1 top end war when I can buy 5 Grandmaster crystals and probably gain more shards for cheaper? Also if you want the map tougher and defender kills brought back get ready for alliances to go back to searching easier matches meaning lower ranked alliances getting **** stomped (guess what like with diversity you got no chance), Honestly with all the cost/time associated with this game it’s nice to see one aspect of it has actually become less of a money grab.

Anonymous

My only complaint about war before was top 50 or 100 rewards were not indicative of the difficulty to win. Winning or losing to mmxiv or iso8a or xilem should grant much higher rewards than a victory in tier 2 or 3.

Husky54

Anonymous wrote: »

My only complaint about war before was top 50 or 100 rewards were not indicative of the difficulty to win. Winning or losing to mmxiv or iso8a or xilem should grant much higher rewards than a victory in tier 2 or 3.

This doesn't make any sense at all. Wanna get rewards you have to win.

hurricant

Kabam Miike wrote: »

PeacockJazz wrote: »

@Kabam Miike We could really use an update about any tweaks that will be made to alliance war scoring and when we can expect the Diversity score to go back to alliance wide as it was intended. It is really hard to plan for an entire alliance when we don't know what to plan for and the longer it goes, the more people will rank up champs that might not even be needed if there are changes. This thread is spiraling and an update would help.

Sorry guys, but we can't offer any more information until we have it. You guys know this. We're working with the team and are gathering information to share from you to them, and vice versa. Changes will not be made in a rush, and as we have said before, this will be an iterative process.

So destroying war could be done in one fell swoop without any input being listened to, but fixing it "will be an iterative process." Funny how that works.

Mcord11758

Husky54 wrote: »

Anonymous wrote: »

My only complaint about war before was top 50 or 100 rewards were not indicative of the difficulty to win. Winning or losing to mmxiv or iso8a or xilem should grant much higher rewards than a victory in tier 2 or 3.

This doesn't make any sense at all. Wanna get rewards you have to win.

It makes perfect sense. Losing a close war against a top notch opponent in tier 1 should not result in less rewards than walking through another alliance in tier 4. Obviously you would need to explore to get your rewards up but imo 80% exploration in tier 1 should at least guarantee max exploration and win rewards of tier 3. This would also imply that winning at tier 1 should come with far greater rewards

DNA3000

TomieCzech wrote: »

DNA3000 wrote: »

TomieCzech wrote: »

"Diversity will be just a small amount of points - a tiebreaker..." Tiebreak my A**

Actually, evidence suggests that it is in fact behaving that way. Unintentionally but not entirely unexpectedly, it is also helping to generate ties in the first place in combination with the new scoring system.

Whoever designed the new scoring system apparently is unfamiliar with Nash equilibrium. The system contains a very strong and very nasty attractor to a bad equilibrium point: the maximal diversity point. It tends to encourage weaker but more diverse defense, which increases the likelihood for maximal exploration, which increases the odds of a close score, which increases the probability that the diversity score will become the deciding factor. And as players come to realize this as being a problem it encourages them to lock their defense strategy into perpetuating the problem indefinitely because no change in strategy can differentially improve matters. That's basically the textbook definition of a Nash equilibrium, for budding game theorists out there.

This should have been a predictable flaw.

As much as you made my head spin, I totally understand and agree. For those who passed out from the spinning - it's just really fancy way of saying - Kabam did a bad bad job and came up with a game design that is fundamentally not functional, so now they have to fix it, having very little idea about how, because they came up with this the first place, so we're all F^%#ED.

I should probably simplify. Alliance War used to encourage players to place their strongest defenders, because obviously it makes sense to make it as hard as possible to defeat them, because that then makes it easier to win the war. Knowing that your opponent will tend to do that to try to win, you have to also do that to even the odds. This makes AW intrinsically competitive: the best thing to do is always to field the strongest defense and the strongest offense possible, knowing your opponents have to do the same thing to try to win.

In 15.0, this changes. If you try to field the strongest defense possible, your opponents have a way to gain an advantage on you. They can change their strategy from fielding the best possible defense to the most diverse possible defense. This defense is likely to be significantly weaker. They will possibly forfeit kills (in some tiers maybe not, but in other tiers they could). But in exchange for making it easier for you to kill their defense they are going to gain a lot more defensive points. If they can kill your stronger defense, their defensive diversity point advantage will give them the win.

Knowing this, you have to respond. To neutralize that advantage you also have to field a more diverse defense, knowing that this will also make it easier for your opponent to get kills, but will gain you more defensive points than you will likely lose. The system actually discourages being competitive in terms of combat in favor of being competitive on placement points.

This is the Nash equilibrium. Everyone is encouraged to place less competitive but more diverse defenders, and anyone trying to do anything different gets penalized for it. Because defenses are weaker and less competitive, attackers are more likely to reach 100%. The more often everyone is reaching 100%, the more important diversity scores become.

If any game designer thought that anything different might happen, that players would compromise between placing diverse defenders verses placing strong ones, they should have done a Nash thought experiment. Lets imagine there's an alliance out there that does some middle ground placement. Whenever they fight someone with more diversity, they will always be at a point disadvantage. Statistically speaking, they will tend to lose more wars than they win. This would act to encourage them to increase diversity. This pressure to push to maximal diversity is what creates the Nash equilibrium. It should have told the devs that middle ground diversity was unstable, and would eventually become weeded out over time.

DNA3000

Thestoryteller6 wrote: »

DNA3000 wrote: »

TomieCzech wrote: »

"Diversity will be just a small amount of points - a tiebreaker..." Tiebreak my A**

Actually, evidence suggests that it is in fact behaving that way. Unintentionally but not entirely unexpectedly, it is also helping to generate ties in the first place in combination with the new scoring system.

Whoever designed the new scoring system apparently is unfamiliar with Nash equilibrium. The system contains a very strong and very nasty attractor to a bad equilibrium point: the maximal diversity point. It tends to encourage weaker but more diverse defense, which increases the likelihood for maximal exploration, which increases the odds of a close score, which increases the probability that the diversity score will become the deciding factor. And as players come to realize this as being a problem it encourages them to lock their defense strategy into perpetuating the problem indefinitely because no change in strategy can differentially improve matters. That's basically the textbook definition of a Nash equilibrium, for budding game theorists out there.

This should have been a predictable flaw.

Great analysis. Does removing defender kills also add to this, because now there's a way for a weaker alliance to match a stronger alliance in exploration and attacker kills?

Yes. Continuing my post above, why is it always likely for a less diverse defense alliance to lose? Because even if you think their stronger defense placement would sometimes cause their opponents to generate less kills, eliminating defensive kill points makes it harder for strong defenders to influence scoring. So basically, weak but diverse defenses get points automatically, but strong not diverse defenses are far less likely to gain points for being strong (by generating kills). This is the force that pushes alliances to become more diverse on defensive placement, and that ultimately creates the Nash equilibrium - the "new normal" - of weaker and more diverse defenses, attackers that have an easier time getting to 100% because the defenses are weaker, and wars ultimately being decided by defensive diversity points because attacker scores are close or tied.

LocoMotives

Well said @DNA3000. I really think the simplest solution to fix AW is to make diversity points equal to a single defender kill. Then there are actual choices to strategize and risk/reward incorporated in choosing what kind of defense to run (full diversity, strongest available, or a mixture of both). I can't see how to fix the idea of AW without having d kills involved in some manner.

DNA3000

JRock808 wrote: »

As a software developer, it's appalling.

You DO NOT DO iterative design in production, much less ANY design. Especially for something that people are expected to pay for.

I'm afraid the iteration principle isn't just common in the MMO industry, it is canonical. It is literally taught as being the *only* way to design and develop MMOs. Not the best way. The ONLY way.

A game developer who tells you differently is lying to you because he is embarrassed to admit otherwise.

There are reasons, and not all of them are completely bonkers. But lets just say I disagree with them.

RagamugginGunner

Any word? Is AW coming back today and if so in what form? Can you please just keep it down until you have it fixed?

JRock808

Matchmaking is open. All rules from last week still apply.

DNA3000

LocoMotives wrote: »

Well said @DNA3000. I really think the simplest solution to fix AW is to make diversity points equal to a single defender kill. Then there are actual choices to strategize and risk/reward incorporated in choosing what kind of defense to run (full diversity, strongest available, or a mixture of both). I can't see how to fix the idea of AW without having d kills involved in some manner.

I don't like the idea of diversity points in general. What if we implemented a "conservation of ninjitsu" principle (sorry for the tvtropes reference)? Suppose that if an alliance placed more than one copy of the same champ, each successive copy would be weaker. So the first Magik you place would be full strength. But the second one would be only 80% of the strength or something. The next one would be 60%. The fourth would be 50%. Pick the right numbers, something that eventually leveled off. And the game would choose which one was "first" by node number. The highest node number would be the "top" one. The second highest would be "second" as so forth. That way the bosses and miniboss nodes would get priority.

This way nobody gets "points" at the start of the war for doing anything in particular. The incentive and disincentives for placing a diverse defense are built into the map and the combat, not in the scoring. This serves two purposes. First, instead of an abrupt transition where the first Dormammu is worth a ton of points and the second one is worth almost zero points (under the most recent revision a kill equals his placement, plus or minus a few points for rating), we now have a more gradual penalty where the first one is worth full points, and the second one is worth the same amount of points but is easier to kill, etc.

This only works if we bring back some kind of defense side points, otherwise we will end up with too many ties. But we want to disguise defense points so people don't think they are getting penalized for trying and failing to kill the node. So what if we change the attacker points so that instead of just handing the attacker points for the kill, we give the attacker more points if they are a good attacker, which also means we give less points of the defender is a good defender. One way I can think of to do that is to use time. Suppose that we give the attacker points based on how much time it takes to defeat the node? This automatically factors in defensive kills in a sense, because if it takes multiple attackers to kill the node the tendency is for that time to be longer.

Suppose we give the attacker 100 points per kill, but we divide that by the number of minutes it takes to kill the node. And for mathematical numberish scorey reasons lets make the first minute free. So if you kill the node within the first minute, you get 100 points. If you kill it in two minutes, 50 points. If you die in two minutes and then try again and kill it in 30 seconds with your second attacker, 40 points (100 / 2.5 minutes).

This reincentivizes placing strong defenders because strong defenders in effect take points away from the attackers. But placing the same defender over and over makes them weaker, which hands the attacker points. Even in the very top tiers of war, even in tiers where everyone gets 100% complete, there is still a way to distinguish between good attackers and bad, between good defense and bad.

This would be the second purpose: to return tactical decision making to the players. Instead of being told what to place, which the diversity system essentially does, this system hands the players a set of pros and cons and asks them to find their own balance point that trades them off against each other.

And instead of the Nash equilibrium being at one extreme or the other, it is actually in a fuzzy middle of the game where you want diverse defenders, but you also want the strongest defenders, and there's no easy way to calculate the perfect balance between them. So different players and different alliances will likely compute different "optimal" strategies. Which means you could get diverse defense placement. And that's I think the important diversity. Not diversity of different champions. Diversity in unexpected map placements.

I think this could be tweaked into a reasonable balance, although I admit I would want to think about the precise numbers to use. I'm just tossing out numbers to illustrate the principle at the moment. I would want to have top tier alliances playtest this for best balance between the attacker scoring and the defensive penalty. Maybe a minute is too long, and the defensive penalty almost certainly needs to be tweaked.

This idea isn't perfect, but it does reward good attackers without penalizing defensive kills directly, it encourages diverse defense placement without awarding point advantages, and it strongly encourages direct attacker/defender competition again. I wouldn't say it "fixes" AW, but it shows it is possible to fix it even within the parameters that Kabam appears to be operating under and what I perceive the players' strongest complaints about 15.0 are. I also think it is less likely to encourage degenerate player behavior. Placing a bunch of 3* champs for diversity gets significantly punished.

Huluhula

DNA3000 wrote: »

LocoMotives wrote: »

Well said @DNA3000. I really think the simplest solution to fix AW is to make diversity points equal to a single defender kill. Then there are actual choices to strategize and risk/reward incorporated in choosing what kind of defense to run (full diversity, strongest available, or a mixture of both). I can't see how to fix the idea of AW without having d kills involved in some manner.

I don't like the idea of diversity points in general. What if we implemented a "conservation of ninjitsu" principle (sorry for the tvtropes reference)? Suppose that if an alliance placed more than one copy of the same champ, each successive copy would be weaker. So the first Magik you place would be full strength. But the second one would be only 80% of the strength or something. The next one would be 60%. The fourth would be 50%. Pick the right numbers, something that eventually leveled off. And the game would choose which one was "first" by node number. The highest node number would be the "top" one. The second highest would be "second" as so forth. That way the bosses and miniboss nodes would get priority.

This way nobody gets "points" at the start of the war for doing anything in particular. The incentive and disincentives for placing a diverse defense are built into the map and the combat, not in the scoring. This serves two purposes. First, instead of an abrupt transition where the first Dormammu is worth a ton of points and the second one is worth almost zero points (under the most recent revision a kill equals his placement, plus or minus a few points for rating), we now have a more gradual penalty where the first one is worth full points, and the second one is worth the same amount of points but is easier to kill, etc.

This only works if we bring back some kind of defense side points, otherwise we will end up with too many ties. But we want to disguise defense points so people don't think they are getting penalized for trying and failing to kill the node. So what if we change the attacker points so that instead of just handing the attacker points for the kill, we give the attacker more points if they are a good attacker, which also means we give less points of the defender is a good defender. One way I can think of to do that is to use time. Suppose that we give the attacker points based on how much time it takes to defeat the node? This automatically factors in defensive kills in a sense, because if it takes multiple attackers to kill the node the tendency is for that time to be longer.

Suppose we give the attacker 100 points per kill, but we divide that by the number of minutes it takes to kill the node. And for mathematical numberish scorey reasons lets make the first minute free. So if you kill the node within the first minute, you get 100 points. If you kill it in two minutes, 50 points. If you die in two minutes and then try again and kill it in 30 seconds with your second attacker, 40 points (100 / 2.5 minutes).

This reincentivizes placing strong defenders because strong defenders in effect take points away from the attackers. But placing the same defender over and over makes them weaker, which hands the attacker points. Even in the very top tiers of war, even in tiers where everyone gets 100% complete, there is still a way to distinguish between good attackers and bad, between good defense and bad.

This would be the second purpose: to return tactical decision making to the players. Instead of being told what to place, which the diversity system essentially does, this system hands the players a set of pros and cons and asks them to find their own balance point that trades them off against each other.

And instead of the Nash equilibrium being at one extreme or the other, it is actually in a fuzzy middle of the game where you want diverse defenders, but you also want the strongest defenders, and there's no easy way to calculate the perfect balance between them. So different players and different alliances will likely compute different "optimal" strategies. Which means you could get diverse defense placement. And that's I think the important diversity. Not diversity of different champions. Diversity in unexpected map placements.

I think this could be tweaked into a reasonable balance, although I admit I would want to think about the precise numbers to use. I'm just tossing out numbers to illustrate the principle at the moment. I would want to have top tier alliances playtest this for best balance between the attacker scoring and the defensive penalty. Maybe a minute is too long, and the defensive penalty almost certainly needs to be tweaked.

This idea isn't perfect, but it does reward good attackers without penalizing defensive kills directly, it encourages diverse defense placement without awarding point advantages, and it strongly encourages direct attacker/defender competition again. I wouldn't say it "fixes" AW, but it shows it is possible to fix it even within the parameters that Kabam appears to be operating under and what I perceive the players' strongest complaints about 15.0 are. I also think it is less likely to encourage degenerate player behavior. Placing a bunch of 3* champs for diversity gets significantly punished.

Yeah but what if you’re a jinchuuriki with a real good shadow clone jutsu and your shadow clones are just as strong as the original (future defensive ability idea)

Vanitelia

The idea pf diversity is fine as long as the pool of champs to pull from is diverse. Kabam doesn't even follow the principle in AQ. You throw a power gain champ on a power gain node (Hyperion). Nodes are designed to enhance the champs strong suits. LOL is full of nodes designed to enhance the champs abilities.

The old war map was designed with that in mind. A few others have hinted at this and people ranked up champs to meet the needs pf the node. Every so often, you would have a curveball on a node and it was enjoyable to fight those. A simple rotation of nodes would make the defender pool naturally diverse.

Some champs are designed to be offensive, some defensive, and so on. We shouldn't need to be forced into diversity by placing an offensive champ on defense to meet the requirement of diversity. It doesn't make sense, just like Kabam won't put a SL on a boss node in AQ for obvious reasons.

Long story short,if you aren't able to buff old champs, then make them useful,by creating nodes that suit their abilities. Cycle the nodes to entice different champs to be placed. You spent a lot of time creating nodes/buffs in Act V. Bring some of those over to AW.