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

RagamugginGunner

GroundedWisdom wrote: »

LeNoirFaineant wrote: »

Has anyone actually fought a war and watched people quit fighting with two heathly champs simply because they lost one and had this "feeling of defeat" that @Kabam Miike states multiple times is the impetus for this new system? It seems to me like we got a broken AW as a result of trying to solve a problem that didn't actually exist. Even if I am wrong, which I doubt, the cure is worse than the disease.

It's a real issue. To the point where people were more concerned about not giving the Opponent Kills than Attacking.

Only people who are terrible at the game give up after one death, and their opinion should not matter to Kabam.

TomieCzech

HQ101 wrote: »

So, just wanna share my experience with how its been preparing for Diversity.

First, its taken 3 days to gather all the useful info, figure out who can be duplicated and who can't and then assign everyone to a ton of champs. All the while, getting mountains of resistance and confusion from the members of my alliance. All in all, it was a colossal pain in the arse.

But, we have every champ represented except Classic Ultron and Thanos. We even have Kang. But honestly, it's still left us ALL with a very EMPTY feeling...and here is why...

We spent YEARS, money and resources making informed decisions on the BEST champs to bring up as AW Defenders. Spent time bringing up their signatures. Tweaking our masteries just right. Choosing other champs that have Synergy with them. All to create the Ultimate AW Defense Team..

AND NONE OF IT EVEN MATTERS ANYMORE.

Synergy doesn't matter. Our Defenders don't matter. Our R5 Champs Don't matter.

The only STUPID THING that matters anymore, is if we FILL IN ALL THE BLANKS.

And that's all that it is folks. That is entirely what war has been reduced to. No strategy. Just making sure all the boxes are checked.

To top it ALL off, the Ultimate Insult is when some players are bringing super low ranked teams, simply because they have MOST of the newer and rarer champs unranked yet.

We are truly being whizzed on and told its raining. Diversity in NO WAY benefits us. The only one it could possibly benefit is the one that profits from us getting all these new champs to insure Diversity.

And Kabam "didn't notice it" until the feedback from the release of the update. Now they're taking iterative approach on fixing it. How pathetic!! They think we're a bunch of dumb sheeps. I feel insulted.

It's very much the same with our alliance. Entire week of gathering information from confused pissed members yet the first war after a dude didn't read his messages and placed wrong champs.

TomieCzech

linux wrote: »

OnlyOneAboveAll wrote: »

Sha59 wrote: »

HQ101 wrote: »

So, just wanna share my experience with how its been preparing for Diversity.

First, its taken 3 days to gather all the useful info, figure out who can be duplicated and who can't and then assign everyone to a ton of champs. All the while, getting mountains of resistance and confusion from the members of my alliance. All in all, it was a colossal pain in the arse.

But, we have every champ represented except Classic Ultron and Thanos. We even have Kang. But honestly, it's still left us ALL with a very EMPTY feeling...and here is why...

We spent YEARS, money and resources making informed decisions on the BEST champs to bring up as AW Defenders. Spent time bringing up their signatures. Tweaking our masteries just right. Choosing other champs that have Synergy with them. All to create the Ultimate AW Defense Team..

AND NONE OF IT EVEN MATTERS ANYMORE.

Synergy doesn't matter. Our Defenders don't matter. Our R5 Champs Don't matter.

The only STUPID THING that matters anymore, is if we FILL IN ALL THE BLANKS.

And that's all that it is folks. That is entirely what war has been reduced to. No strategy. Just making sure all the boxes are checked.

To top it ALL off, the Ultimate Insult is when some players are bringing super low ranked teams, simply because they have MOST of the newer and rarer champs unranked yet.

We are truly being whizzed on and told its raining. Diversity in NO WAY benefits us. The only one it could possibly benefit is the one that profits from us getting all these new champs to insure Diversity.

Years? Wow, where you playing pre beta or something?

R5 champs matter, the more diverse your champs are at R5, and 5* R3 R4 the more chance you have to win.

I dont want to educate people on the other stuff, if you gus cannot figure things out then whatever, but this post is incorrect in so many ways.

He is actually the one that is correct. People are winning wars by placing 3 star champ in their defence against high ranking alliances. You sir are the one with your information mixed up. Any vet that has been playing since beta or day one of release knows what HQ is talking about is 100% correct. Thousands of dollars down the drain. None of it matters anymore.

I think the truth is a mixture. Our last war we won because we placed 150 diverse champs and they placed 148. But they blew us away with prestige, and once they fix their last diversity mistakes (the two dupes), they'd beat us on defender rating -- so you should care about ranks and synergies under the current system, but it only starts to matter once you've figure out how to hit 150 diversity (easy if tedious and soul-crushing). Right now it's actually easy to get to 150 -- because it's per BG rules, you just need to figure out 50 decent champs and assign each player a set of champs to bring.

... but that brings me to my latest update: one person in our alliance screwed up and placed in the wrong BG. 4 duplicates! In t2 (our current match-up) we're screwed before the war begins -- we already know we're going to lose against an opponent that placed correctly and plays adequately.

How are you guys doing with exploration? So far every war we fought at tier 4 was close to 100% or exact 100% exploration both alliances!! Always a tie! I remember only handful of wars this close since their introduction, now it's every single one!

TomieCzech

RagamugginGunner wrote: »

GroundedWisdom wrote: »

LeNoirFaineant wrote: »

Has anyone actually fought a war and watched people quit fighting with two heathly champs simply because they lost one and had this "feeling of defeat" that @Kabam Miike states multiple times is the impetus for this new system? It seems to me like we got a broken AW as a result of trying to solve a problem that didn't actually exist. Even if I am wrong, which I doubt, the cure is worse than the disease.

It's a real issue. To the point where people were more concerned about not giving the Opponent Kills than Attacking.

Only people who are terrible at the game give up after one death, and their opinion should not matter to Kabam.

I wonder who of the top alliances down to tier 4 complained about this to kabam LOL

I've never had this problem with my alliance. We only had to keep close track of our deaths to know where we stand and keep them as low as possible. The only time we'd ask someone to give up was when getting stuck on a difficult node, because we didn't want the person to give 9 deaths to our opponent by reviving couple times! Mainly on shared nodes.

MegaVolts

is the diversity on current wars per BG, or per alliance? Anyone knows?

Jaffacaked

Reinstag wrote: »

is the diversity on current wars per BG, or per alliance? Anyone knows?

Per bg at the moment

HQ101

Voluntaris wrote: »

yup @Sha59 is right , 5/50 and 4/55 champs do still matter, since with diversity currently being per BG it is VERY easy to organize perfect 150 diverse champions, meaning, when both teams 100% (which is par for the course around 2700+ war rating) the win all comes down to defender rating.

Does it now?

Voluntaris

HQ101 wrote: »

Voluntaris wrote: »

yup @Sha59 is right , 5/50 and 4/55 champs do still matter, since with diversity currently being per BG it is VERY easy to organize perfect 150 diverse champions, meaning, when both teams 100% (which is par for the course around 2700+ war rating) the win all comes down to defender rating.

Does it now?

I see you didn't easily organize no duplicates per Battlegroup. So your war did not come down to defender rating.

My prior statement was in regards to when an alliance does not place any duplicates per Battlegroup resulting in 150 Diversity rating. Your alliance placed 2 duplicates, resulting in 148 Diversity rating, that is why you lost.

chunkyb

war
wôr/
noun
1.
a state of assuming 100% map exploration and 150 diverse champs and hoping your defender rating is higher so you can squeak out a win.

2.
Something that used to be fun and challenging.

unknown

This content has been removed.

HQ101

Point taken.

But its still what it is. The more deserving team IMO lost over Diversity. Its an empty feeling to say the least. Not sure where all the strategy is in all of this.

By your comment, as long as both place 150 unique defenders, both 100% the maps, the team with the Higher Defender Rating will win every time in the 2600+ War Teams brackets. Diversity seems to be an Ironic word to use when it all boils down to who brings the higher rated team. Not very "Diverse" when the whole thing is geared towards who has the best champs. I suppose Rank Ups do stay viable at that point, but to the degree of cutting the underdog out of the picture it seems. At least in the old format, the lower ranked team had a chance. Not so much now. And where is the "Diversity" in that??

Voluntaris

HQ101 wrote: »

Point taken.

But its still what it is. The more deserving team IMO lost over Diversity. Its an empty feeling to say the least. Not sure where all the strategy is in all of this.

By your comment, as long as both place 150 unique defenders, both 100% the maps, the team with the Higher Defender Rating will win every time in the 2600+ War Teams brackets. Diversity seems to be an Ironic word to use when it all boils down to who brings the higher rated team. Not very "Diverse" when the whole thing is geared towards who has the best champs. I suppose Rank Ups do stay viable at that point, but to the degree of cutting the underdog out of the picture it seems. At least in the old format, the lower ranked team had a chance. Not so much now. And where is the "Diversity" in that??

don't get me wrong, i hate new Diversity Parade "wars" ... and pray skill is brought back into the fold #BringBackDefenderKills

Was just previously agreeing with other guy that at this time, at higher levels, it's all about defender rating (which is very boring)

HQ101

Voluntaris wrote: »

Was just previously agreeing with other guy that at this time, at higher levels, it's all about defender rating (which is very boring)

The OPPOSITE of Diversity is Uniformity. And that's what this new AW has truly created. A Uniform system where EVERYONE does exactly the same thing. There is no room for skill or creativity anymore. We fill in the boxes. Our opponents fill in the boxes. We wait around to see who has the higher Defender Rating.

Voluntaris

HQ101 wrote: »

Voluntaris wrote: »

Was just previously agreeing with other guy that at this time, at higher levels, it's all about defender rating (which is very boring)

The OPPOSITE of Diversity is Uniformity. And that's what this new AW has truly created. A Uniform system where EVERYONE does exactly the same thing. There is no room for skill or creativity anymore. We fill in the boxes. Our opponents fill in the boxes. We wait around to see who has the higher Defender Rating.

Agreed.

UC439

A suggestion regarding defender diversity:

Create 10 clear paths
Restrict people from placing more than 1 of the same defender per path. (Like sudoku)

Like if u bring 10 magiks, u'll have to place them in 10 different paths, u won't be able to create a path full of magik.

That way ur defenders will still be as useful as they were, but u'll need more strategy while placing them.

Kpatrix

UC439 wrote: »

A suggestion regarding defender diversity:

Create 10 clear paths
Restrict people from placing more than 1 of the same defender per path. (Like sudoku)

Like if u bring 10 magiks, u'll have to place them in 10 different paths, u won't be able to create a path full of magik.

That way ur defenders will still be as useful as they were, but u'll need more strategy while placing them.

10 paths is too many, sometimes you are forced to play with less than 10 per bg. 9 paths are fine. Diversity should attain max score with 60% of defenders being diverse. Bring back defender kills as a strategy to compensate for less diversity, but at a disadvantage. 3 defender kills match 1 diversity point. Make full exploration of the map increase rewards wether you win or lose. Let's make it beneficial to keep fighting and progressing on the map. There will always be a winner and a loser, just give everyone more incentive to finish the maps

andrade5184

we will loose our next war cause one guy made a mistake and placed one duplicate defender. seems pretty stupid problem that has been created

DNA3000

UC439 wrote: »

A suggestion regarding defender diversity:

Create 10 clear paths
Restrict people from placing more than 1 of the same defender per path. (Like sudoku)

Like if u bring 10 magiks, u'll have to place them in 10 different paths, u won't be able to create a path full of magik.

That way ur defenders will still be as useful as they were, but u'll need more strategy while placing them.

That I think makes the same mistake the current 15.0 war makes: it focuses on champion diversity when the game should be trying to encourage map placement diversity. In other words, it should encourage alliances to make different maps, and ideally it should encourage alliances to place differently in every war: there should be a "predictability penalty." I have this gut feeling that if an alliance always placed defenders in the same way and their opponents knew this there should be a mechanism for those opponents to take advantage of that. If such a penalty existed, and I've mentioned some ideas about this, then the players would fix the problem themselves. Good alliances would punish predictable ones, and that would apply pressure to become less predictable over time.

A unique per path rule is just a smaller version of the uniqueness rule: unique per alliance, unique per battlegroup, unique per path. It is better in that it reduces the scope of the problem, but it preserves the nature of the problem.

There's also some weird corner case problems with this rule. You'd have to change the mechanics of placement a bit to accommodate this. Currently, you pick your team first and then place them second. Suppose I am the last player to place in my battlegroup and I pick my team and I place my first four defenders. There's only one spot left, but it is possible that my last defender is illegal for that path. But if I'm not an officer I can't move any of my previously placed defenders. I am stuck unable to place the last one. I would have to wait for an officer to juggle to place. It is not a big problem, but it is the sort of thing you have to think through when making these kinds of gameplay rules.

JJW

Moderators - can we get an update of some kind?

The last formal update was 9 days ago.

Telling us nothing is telling us something, but it isn't a particularly nice thing to say.

hurricant

I am no longer allowed to be negative around here. So let me say that I am positive that whatever changes they make to aw won't be good unless it's bringing back defender kills and lowering diversity points.

hurricant

HQ101 wrote: »

Voluntaris wrote: »

Was just previously agreeing with other guy that at this time, at higher levels, it's all about defender rating (which is very boring)

The OPPOSITE of Diversity is Uniformity. And that's what this new AW has truly created. A Uniform system where EVERYONE does exactly the same thing. There is no room for skill or creativity anymore. We fill in the boxes. Our opponents fill in the boxes. We wait around to see who has the higher Defender Rating.

We are a 9m alliance facing a 14m alliance. Our war ratings are the same. We will lose because of their defender rating being higher. Before the war even started, now we are stuck for 24 hours waiting for the loss. War should not be decided based on who has more diverse champs.

Phantom

I've seen some great resolutions to the current system. But I have to say, why do we need them? Some of them are great, don't get me wrong, but can't we just have the old scoring system back? Just give us higher Skirmish rewards for diversity. Let us decide whether we want a better shot at shards or gold.

TomieCzech

RagamugginGunner wrote: »

GroundedWisdom wrote: »

LeNoirFaineant wrote: »

Has anyone actually fought a war and watched people quit fighting with two heathly champs simply because they lost one and had this "feeling of defeat" that @Kabam Miike states multiple times is the impetus for this new system? It seems to me like we got a broken AW as a result of trying to solve a problem that didn't actually exist. Even if I am wrong, which I doubt, the cure is worse than the disease.

It's a real issue. To the point where people were more concerned about not giving the Opponent Kills than Attacking.

Only people who are terrible at the game give up after one death, and their opinion should not matter to Kabam.

I wonder who of the top alliances down to tier 4 complained about this to kabam LOL

I've never had this problem with my alliance. We only had to keep close track of our deaths to know where we stand and keep them as low as possible. The only time we'd ask someone to give up was even getting stuck on a difficult node, because we didn't want the person to give 9 deaths to our opponent by reviving couple times! Mainly on shared nodes.

DNA3000

Phantom wrote: »

I've seen some great resolutions to the current system. But I have to say, why do we need them? Some of them are great, don't get me wrong, but can't we just have the old scoring system back? Just give us higher Skirmish rewards for diversity. Let us decide whether we want a better shot at shards or gold.

It is a fair question that players ask often. And there's a simple, if not always satisfactory, answer. The devs generally have reasons for making these kinds of changes that fundamentally revolve around fixing what they perceive to be problems with the way the game was. Player complaints, data mining, and other information can convince them that their solution is bad, but none of those things is likely to convince them the problems they perceived don't actually exist. So reverting to the way the game was would just return them to square one with the same problems to solve. And clearly those problems were bad enough to them to cause them to do all of this, so they would be compelled to immediately do something else.

Given that, MMO devs would rather try to change the implementation from something that poorly solves the problem to something that better solves the problem. They would prefer to move forward. That's why reversions are so rare. Even with all of the controversy and protests surrounding 12.0, it is worth noting that exactly none of the major changes in 12.0 were reverted. Some were softened. Some were reworked. All of them are still here. None of the major nerfed champions were returned to their original strength. Challenge rating, Diminishing returns, Armor Penetration, Block Penetration, Critical resistance are all still here, some in less developed forms. No one convinced the devs that the reasons for doing those things were invalid, they were only convinced that some of those things went too far too quickly.

It is clear the devs believed the old war was broken. We might be able to convince them the 15.0 version is not right. But it is extremely difficult to convince them that 14.0 was fine enough to convince them to go back to it. That's why suggestions to tweak the new system can sometimes effect changes, but suggestions to roll back to the old system tend to fall on deaf ears. To convince the devs to roll back to 14.0 war, you would have to convince them that not only is 15.0 war bad, but that no possible set of changes to it have any chance to make it better. That is a tough hill to climb.

rtilghman

Dude, I don't care about any of these arguments... WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO PUSH THE FIX FOR VISION?!?!?

None of his SA do any power burn damage, meaning they don't do any damage, PERIOD. This bug has been on the radar and KNOWN for 1.5+ months at this point! Seriously guys, this is ridiculous... Vision is a major character for high level players in AQ, War, and Act 5. Not having him usable but focusing on "making sure that 6* content is moving forward!" is insulting and ridiculous.

Fix. The. Game.

-rt

sbb75

Just a thought.... After everyone is set with the same/max Divirisity and war ratings start to shift.
Will Thanos be mandatory for Tier 1?

Thanos has divirisity and PI not possible to match, even with unlimited resources.
Whoever has a Thanos should list themselves on Ebay!!!! (Kidding, don't ban me)

KhanMedina

GroundedWisdom wrote: »

KhanMedina wrote: »

Cantstopwontstop wrote: »

zero7 wrote: »

GroundedWisdom wrote: »

Hulk_77 wrote: »

Fixing War is simple and does not need to be a complex overhaul. I will lay it out real quick:

1) Make 2 portals able to hit the leftmost mini-boss (currently only 1 does)

2) Keep diversity internal to battle groups. Its current state is apparently a bug, but it also makes the most sense. I does not grant advantage to alliances who have champs like a Deadpool or Kang, and each attacker is only fighting in one battle group anyways. Spreading it across the whole alliance is an incredible headache to manage as well. Plus, with less than 150 champs (107 currently I think), this would reward having 50 different defenders in each battle group vs having 100 unique defenders jammed into 2 BGs with the third BG filled with nothing but Magik, Dorm, Nightcrawler, etc. Which is where the meta will trend, and it will be complete unfair for whichever BG ends up drawing that opponent's BG.

3) Change scoring to the below:

Points Breakdown:
Node Exploration: 300 per Node (equals out to before, when it was 450)
Boss Kill: 20 000 Points
Defenders Placed: 50 per Defender Placed
Defender Diversity: 125 per Unique Defender
Defender Rating: 0.002 per PI
Attacker Kills: 150 per Kill (please note this only works with diversity INTERNAL to BGs, not alliance wide)
Defender Kills: 50 per Kill

This points breakdown actually leaves a skill element (not dying) and makes diversity matter. And as for not attacking because you're afraid you'd die... clearing the node in less than 9 deaths is still a net point gain for the attacker, so it shouldn't be a big deal. Without defender kills, the skill element is completely gone, and war's outcomes are determined before the first punch is thrown. Which simply put, just isn't any fun. This is a game, right?

The above setup challenges an alliance to make the best possible defense it can while also using 50 diverse champs in each battle group, which is great for variety and will make war less boring. It also keeps skill a factor. If you can clear the map in less deaths than your opponent, you can beat an opponent that is more highly ranked than you. Which is how war should be.

Finally, the above will work, but I would also consider adding a few new buffs to some nodes. Specific to groups, like "Robots gain X on this this node", "Inhumans gain Y on this node", "Villians gain Z on this node". We have all of these tags on our heroes, use them!

The scoring system is an idea, but the problem with adding Defender Kills into the metrics again is it creates the same issue. It contradicts Diversity, and also makes it possible to KO into a Loss again. That would be two of the objectives of the changes. Basically, teams would opt to use the same Defenders regardless, and the KOs would be the focus.

the ko's should be the focus. do you actually play this game? seems like you spend more time on the forums than playing.

He doesn't.

He specifically said he stopped playing awhile ago and just comes on here to bother people. Sucks, because you replies more than the real players and they're probably basing things off of his untested ideas assuming he's the voice of the people.

He never said that at all. "He" plays the game and speaks for himself. He also understands the game overall, and looks at the whole picture, not just one demographic.

Except you did though. You said you stopped playing because you were tired of all the stupid changes, and now you just come on here to mess with the people who haven't left yet. I don't have time to go through your 1000s of posts, but it was absolutely said. This is the game for you. Rather than tap and swipe on the screen, you come here and try to push buttons and further your own pointless agenda. Have fun.

Kabam Miike

Hey Everybody,

Thank you for waiting patiently as we worked behind the scenes to continue to improve the new Alliance Wars. We’re still making some adjustments, and want to re-emphasize that this will be an iterative process - one that we are dedicated to. We have greatly appreciated all of the constructive feedback Summoners have provided us with, as well as those that have urged their fellow players to grant us some time to look into both your comments and the way that Alliance Wars is currently running.

At this time, we can say that we have made a decision to keep Defender Diversity dependant on individual Battlegroups, and not based on the entire Alliance, as originally intended. This is something that many of you have requested, and something that we agree is better for players. This way, we’re shifting away from having to focus on your entire Alliance’s rosters, and to only those you are playing with directly.

We are still working on some things behind the scenes to ensure that we hit our goals that we wanted to achieve with this new iteration of Alliance wars, including the fact that Defender Diversity is meant to be a tie breaker, and not deciding the war. We will continue to make more iterations and adjustments until we have fulfilled our goals of making Alliance Wars more fun and engaging, as well as making the mode more varied, and to address concerns you all brought up.

Stay tuned! We will have more information to share with you next week!

Hulk_77

That's a good move.

I don't see how you can avoid not adding kills back still. Otherwise it will be 150 diversity vs 150 diversity and come down to PI every war.

mostlyharmlessn

Since you are keeping the absurd idea of defender diversity then at least reduce the points for it.

I have yet to see anyone say .. Oh goody I got a spider gwen that will be good for Defender diversity... we still curse at getting these terrible champs.