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

Brandonius

Lost 4 of 5 wars where even 25points per defender kill would have won all 5. We played better than the opponents but because we are short handed, we lose.

Nobody in the alliance has any interest in Wars because they suck. Most are losing interest in the game period.

Kabam better fix this quick before it escalates.

andrade5184

SilverSurfer5 wrote: »

Defender diversity was supposed to allow us to use champs we never use. But "placing a champ" on defense is not using them. EVERY single person still attacks and "uses" the same champs as before. All this Defender Diversity does is put more money in YOUR WALLET because you want to force us to use items on USELESS champs. Please don't try to play the community as fools Kabam. Lets be honest about your intentions and find a better solution to the current pile of steaming horse manure you are currently calling AW.

exactly if u want every champ to be used on defense then buff every champ so that every champ is usefull on defense. its only making war easier to get 100% exploration

Heywood

Hulk_77 wrote: »

Indrick781 wrote: »

The war needs a skill element. D kills is all I can come up with.

Absolutely. There is a temptation to throw a champ like nightcrawler on every stun immune or limber node hoping that someone will slip up against him trying to get him to switch. If you place him anyway in spite of diversity points and he gets a kill, you should get points for that. If he doesn't get a kill, you should get penalized for placing 2 of the same champ. The fix seems so incredibly easy to me. Reduce diversity points as they are far too high. Add defender kills back.

Brandonius

They are losing money, not making it. Less people interested in playing and fewer items required

andrade5184

Jon8299 wrote: »

Heywood wrote: »

Jon8299 wrote: »

andrade5184 wrote: »

so with that being said per bg diversity is actually worst because u have to get 150 in diversity every time no chance for 2 magiks in one bg

If you want to max diversity, you can't have 2 Magiks anyways, not in the same BG or in different BGs. It doesn't matter.

That isn't true. The scoring is by battlegroup.
You can place a Magik in Gruops 1, 2 and 3 and each will count as one unique defender.

What I'm trying to say is, that it is better to have it per group. The people I was quoting earlier were saying it was better for diversity to be per whole alliance, One person said per group is worse cause you can't have 2 Magiks in it, either way you can't have 2 magiks per group. Hope this clarifies my statements.

if there is only a maximum of 110 champs in the game then u would be able to place who ever u wanted after the number of 110 diversity was reached therefore u would have 40 spots available for any duplicates you want

Jon8299

andrade5184 wrote: »

Jon8299 wrote: »

Heywood wrote: »

Jon8299 wrote: »

andrade5184 wrote: »

so with that being said per bg diversity is actually worst because u have to get 150 in diversity every time no chance for 2 magiks in one bg

If you want to max diversity, you can't have 2 Magiks anyways, not in the same BG or in different BGs. It doesn't matter.

That isn't true. The scoring is by battlegroup.
You can place a Magik in Gruops 1, 2 and 3 and each will count as one unique defender.

What I'm trying to say is, that it is better to have it per group. The people I was quoting earlier were saying it was better for diversity to be per whole alliance, One person said per group is worse cause you can't have 2 Magiks in it, either way you can't have 2 magiks per group. Hope this clarifies my statements.

if there is only a maximum of 110 champs in the game then u would be able to place who ever u wanted after the number of 110 diversity was reached therefore u would have 40 spots available for any duplicates you want

Oh you're right, I completely missed that.

unknown

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Ultimatheory

Thank you for keeping diversity per BG and not across the whole alliance. It is far easier to organize the defense this way. Everyone still freaking out apparently missed the part where they are still working on the issue that diversity points are only supposed to be a tie breaker and not a deciding factor in a war. You can continue freaking out after they address this. For now it's still up in the air.

NMEONES

So yeah... thanks for the update @Kabam Miike .... you did absolutely nothing to make us feel that AW is going to become what it once was.

I can't stress enough how horrible defender diversity is. You guys obviously have no intention on listening to the community about this and it's a shame. More and more people quit by the day. I just don't understand the business logic behind not bringing back the old scoring system. You guys must be making a lot less money from AW now. I can't see anyone needing to spend money or units to actually 100% the map anymore. At least with the old scoring system you guys must have made a pretty penny from all the items everyone had to buy.. and to be perfectly honest, I wish AW was back to how it was and i had to spend here and there, i enjoyed it more and it was worth the $$.

As things stand right now, you'll never see 1 unit from me spent on AW.. even if I had to use an item [which 99% of the time I wouldn't have to now]

I'm glad this makes sense to you, because I truly can not see the logic behind it... thank you, once again, for destroying the best part of the game...

R.I.P A.W

andrade5184

Ultimatheory wrote: »

Thank you for keeping diversity per BG and not across the whole alliance. It is far easier to organize the defense this way. Everyone still freaking out apparently missed the part where they are still working on the issue that diversity points are only supposed to be a tie breaker and not a deciding factor in a war. You can continue freaking out after they address this. For now it's still up in the air.

we only freak out cause the simple solution is still not here and yet we have another week of unfair wars coming up. send us a 5* crystal and you can have all the time u need kabam

Mcord11758

Hey this is what it is. Do what makes sense for you

Hulk_77

andrade5184 wrote: »

Jon8299 wrote: »

Heywood wrote: »

Jon8299 wrote: »

andrade5184 wrote: »

so with that being said per bg diversity is actually worst because u have to get 150 in diversity every time no chance for 2 magiks in one bg

If you want to max diversity, you can't have 2 Magiks anyways, not in the same BG or in different BGs. It doesn't matter.

That isn't true. The scoring is by battlegroup.
You can place a Magik in Gruops 1, 2 and 3 and each will count as one unique defender.

What I'm trying to say is, that it is better to have it per group. The people I was quoting earlier were saying it was better for diversity to be per whole alliance, One person said per group is worse cause you can't have 2 Magiks in it, either way you can't have 2 magiks per group. Hope this clarifies my statements.

if there is only a maximum of 110 champs in the game then u would be able to place who ever u wanted after the number of 110 diversity was reached therefore u would have 40 spots available for any duplicates you want

For now, but 2 new champs are added every month. Plus, you really wouldn't. You'd have to place your highest PI champs or lose on defender rating in the war.

Huluhula

Brandonius wrote: »

Lost 4 of 5 wars where even 25points per defender kill would have won all 5. We played better than the opponents but because we are short handed, we lose.

Nobody in the alliance has any interest in Wars because they suck. Most are losing interest in the game period.

Kabam better fix this quick before it escalates.

149-46 dEfEnDeR kills HOLY ****..... LOL
Kabam made a killing off of those dudes no wonder they don’t want to change things

R96

I cant belive u are still keeping this aw update and are just working on making the stupid new system to work. U literally destroyed aw which is pretty much the only remaining fun part left in the game. I utterly can not belive u did not make 2 obviously demanded changes;

1- more fights and more diverse nodes

2- giving us the chance of bringing in more attack champs

Mcoc isn't a god damn card game we dont want to grind or spend for a champ just to place its photo on a map.
We want to fight more with our champs. ur recent update destroyed war in the most unbelivably uncreative way.
I don't know what the god damn heck bringing in portals was for its just made the map messy and annoying.
And no defender kills has literally destroyed strong defense champs and skilled players.
I don't get why u have to take the fun out of the game.
U could have just brought in 1 single good new thing to aw and I could swear people would have been happy even with all the other bad stuff that came with it. But u have not added even a single good thing to aw.

Brandonius

Huluhula wrote: »

Brandonius wrote: »

149-46 dEfEnDeR kills HOLY ****..... LOL
Kabam made a killing off of those dudes no wonder they don’t want to change things

Yup. We were in transition with some departed players and this happens. We play far better and efficient, and lose. Paying attention Kabam? Even our opponents agreed the system sucks and they did not deserve the win. (Tho to say otherwise would have been ridiculous)

25points per defender kill would make a HUGE difference in most wars. Seems pretty simple to me.

Bigbadromo

My alliance has already lost 4 long time players due to the change in aw. Kabam is losing money as they're dropping quickly in the top grossing apps. Hopefully they finally listen to the players and add back defender kills to even this out. Defender kills WOULD make defender diversity the tiebreaker. Aw is broken and they're still plenty of bugs needing to be fixed. Not to mention the whole 5 star punisher debacle. Please own up to your mistakes so I don't need to watch the game go down the toilet

Mcord11758

Psymonsez68 wrote: »

How many wars ended in a tie with the old system? Not understanding why we need diversity as a tie breaker!

That is the spin, the just aren't being upfront with their real motive

hurricant

andrade5184 wrote: »

pretty sure they get satisfaction and a pay day or it wouldnt make any sense for them to do

hurricant wrote: »

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.

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.

Just like I predicted, we lost the war because of defender rating. Thanks Kabam! This is so fun! Change war back please. Bring back defender kills, lower diversity points. It's the only way

Heywood

Literally no way we could have won. FIX THIS!

hurricant

Heywood wrote: »

Literally no way we could have won. FIX THIS!

@Kabam Miike look please. this is what this new system does. we played perfectly, and we lose because the other alliance is 14m and we are 9m and they have higher rated defenders. This. Is. Not. Fair.

unknown

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RehctansBew

Was there a poll for the feedback on Diversity by BG vs Alliance. I was wondering where the imput was coming from when they said they were listening to the feedback. I have seen a lot of feedback regarding the defender kills but I didn't see distinct feedback of BG vs Alliance Diversity. Was there a different thread, thanks?

Lord_Grallähnstein

Wow, the removal of points for defender kills may be the worst of changes introduced ever. Whilst I am sure it is fabulastic for Kabam profits, it now means it is pointless to even place defenders. They are all coming down no matter what. 100% exploration and diversity and defender rating seems to be the new tie-breakers. With the jokes for new nodes, there is really nothing even remotely challenging left in AWs. All bosses, including but not limited to, Magik are easily taken down even with four out of five mini-bosses still up. Perhaps it is different in higher tiers, but thus far this is simply ludicrous. Tsk.. removing defender kill points has nothing to do with encouraging (poor and unskilled) players to proceed; the points awarded were marginal anyway. Why not simply be upfront with the real motive: now said players are encouraged to purchase the insanely over-priced revives. Good job, people. You ruined AW too. What's next?

ctp1223

Kabam Miike wrote: »

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!

All we ask is that you can really give us a timely notification if the scoring of diversity is going to change. It honestly takes a lot of time to make sure everyone has diversity in my alliance (can't say the same for others). So for example, if you (Kabam) drops the bomb that it is going to change in the next 24 hours, we will scramble to get that update applied to our defense setups. That will not be cool, not at all.

unknown

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DNA3000

Psymonsez68 wrote: »

How many wars ended in a tie with the old system? Not understanding why we need diversity as a tie breaker!

Kabam is many things, but eloquent is not one of them. What Kabam Miike means, or rather the dev principle I think KM is trying to relay to us, is that the developers want defender diversity to be a small effect that is unlikely to cause an alliance that performs much better than the other alliance to lose, but when the war is very close then diversity can swing the balance between two roughly comparable alliances that perform similarly. It is not intended to be literally a tie breaker.

The problem is that the players are not perceiving diversity points that way, they are perceiving them more like a bowling handicap where one side starts off with more points (you can't see that initially, but that's ultimately what is happening) and then if both sides perform identically the other side basically wins by default. Players are seeing that as a victory being stolen if it ever affects the results of the war.

I should mention I don't believe that is an unfair perception.

GroundedWisdom

andrade5184 wrote: »

SilverSurfer5 wrote: »

Defender diversity was supposed to allow us to use champs we never use. But "placing a champ" on defense is not using them. EVERY single person still attacks and "uses" the same champs as before. All this Defender Diversity does is put more money in YOUR WALLET because you want to force us to use items on USELESS champs. Please don't try to play the community as fools Kabam. Lets be honest about your intentions and find a better solution to the current pile of steaming horse manure you are currently calling AW.

exactly if u want every champ to be used on defense then buff every champ so that every champ is usefull on defense. its only making war easier to get 100% exploration

The idea of useful or not useful is based on how many Kills they got in the old system. Those Champs aren't actually useless. They're not the so-called "Top Tier", named so because of the Kills they amassed. That's part-and-parcel with the need for Diversity to begin with.

Waldo

The rules changed today. @Kabam Miike you posted as doctrine that defender diversity wasn't working as intended and would be fixed as soon as possible 10 days ago. This was in regards to points being score per battle group and not per alliance. After posting that, a lot of us took you at your word and ranked up champions that are undesirable, very low tier champions. I don't expect rank down tickets to go out, but there should be a way to revert those specific champs ranked in the last 10 days back to what they were. We did this based on what you said, not game theory or a gamble.

While I don't believe you intentionally lied, it was still a lie just the same. Do the right thing here guys, we all know it can be done without pushing out a slew of 4 & 5 star rank down tickets. There has to be a way to target these champs ranked over the last 10 days.

chunkyb

You can call a dog a cat 100 more times if you'd like, but no one has bought it and no one is going to buy it.

Please stop spamming as it is against the rules. Thx

DNA3000

GroundedWisdom wrote: »

andrade5184 wrote: »

SilverSurfer5 wrote: »

Defender diversity was supposed to allow us to use champs we never use. But "placing a champ" on defense is not using them. EVERY single person still attacks and "uses" the same champs as before. All this Defender Diversity does is put more money in YOUR WALLET because you want to force us to use items on USELESS champs. Please don't try to play the community as fools Kabam. Lets be honest about your intentions and find a better solution to the current pile of steaming horse manure you are currently calling AW.

exactly if u want every champ to be used on defense then buff every champ so that every champ is usefull on defense. its only making war easier to get 100% exploration

andrade5184 wrote: »

SilverSurfer5 wrote: »

Defender diversity was supposed to allow us to use champs we never use. But "placing a champ" on defense is not using them. EVERY single person still attacks and "uses" the same champs as before. All this Defender Diversity does is put more money in YOUR WALLET because you want to force us to use items on USELESS champs. Please don't try to play the community as fools Kabam. Lets be honest about your intentions and find a better solution to the current pile of steaming horse manure you are currently calling AW.

exactly if u want every champ to be used on defense then buff every champ so that every champ is usefull on defense. its only making war easier to get 100% exploration

The idea of useful or not useful is based on how many Kills they got in the old system.

This is a semantic quibble which I am more than happy to eliminate. The problem people are expressing when they talk about useful or not useful defenders can be expressed in a precise way that unambiguously articulates the problem.

14.0 Alliance War presented a system whereby the decision on which champions to place as defenders was based entirely upon their combat defensive strength, which I define to be how difficult they are for an opposing alliance to defeat when placed on a particular node. This then automatically creates a situation where the opposing alliance must decide which champions to use as attackers based on their offensive combat effectiveness, which I define to be their ability to defeat the likely defenders the attacking player is likely to face on the nodes they are likely to traverse.

In this situation, the choices made by both alliances are focused almost exclusively on the results of individual combat sessions: how well do attackers attack, and how well do defenders defend. Within this arena, the two variables on which alliance will likely gain an advantage are a) how well they chose champions from their respective rosters and b) how effective are the combat skills of the attacking player. Most players would consider this to be a reasonable situation to present to players in an environment intended to be a competition.

15.0 changes those rules in such a way that the situation it presents is anticompetitive: it devalues the skills of the attacking player and also devalues the strategic thinking involved in deciding defensive placement. Our ability to fight a fight and our ability to choose defenders and nodes to place them on are the only two gameplay elements of an Alliance War. Instead, 15.0 creates artificial scoring systems that devalue the capabilities of defenders and devalue the skills of the attacking players.

When players complain that they are being forced to place "less useful" defenders it is not valid to claim that they were only "useful" given the old scoring system, because that's not what players are talking about. They are trying to say that in 14.0 they used to consider the properties of the defender before placing that defender. In 15.0, none of the properties of the defender are being considered. You can buff Luke Cage or nerf Magik, but neither of those things really changes their usefulness as defenders in 15.0 for the most part because their value has nothing to do with *any* of their properties except literally their names.

You are focusing on "kills" as if the scoring system is completely arbitrary and the devs are free to choose any system at all and it is all equally good. But the players aren't complaining that the 15.0 scoring system ALTERS the value of the defensive champions. Except for what gets placed on boss nodes, 15.0 ERASES the value of defensive champions. It literally, and I mean literally doesn't matter what those champions are. Their uniqueness is worth far more than anything the defenders can actually do on defense. THAT's what players are complaining about.

As long as you keep mentioning scoring, I don't think you understand the issue. You think people are complaining that Nightcrawler used to be valuable because he got a lot of kills and now because we don't score kills Nightcrawler is less valuable and Luke Cage is more valuable. You are mistaken. Luke Cage is not more valuable. Except for boss nodes, everything has almost no value. Why are people placing Luke Cage? Is it because of his signature ability? Because of his physical resistance? Because of his animations? Because of anything having to do with the champion at all? Nope. It is because we don't have a defensive placement with that name yet. We are placing Luke Cage because "Luke Cage" is not the same name as "Spider-Gwen." The names are different, so we place him. Exactly one of him.

That erasure, that feeling that literally nothing about the defender matters except its name, is the real source of the complaint. You can talk about scoring, but that complaint is not a scoring complaint. At its heart, it is the result of the scoring changes but not about the scoring changes. It is about being told you as a player have been taken out of the equation. Don't bother thinking about the champions. Don't study them. Don't even look at their property sheets at all. None of that matters. Place one of each. That's all that matters.

No matter how AW is scored, if that property still exists that will still be a problem, completely independent of scoring. Add defender kills, eliminate defender kills, change the scoring in any way you want. If this problem still exists, nothing about scoring matters.