heard lots of comments about diversity and defender kills completely agree that defender kills MUST feature in some way.
I think calling it "defender kills" masks the issue, because it makes it seem like we are rewarding the mere placement of a defender. That makes it easy to dismiss. But in fact, defender kills are not about defenders alone. Defender kills are a way to reward good attackers
I think most players interested in a competitive alliance war would agree that ultimately, the winner should be the alliance that performs the most effective attack. How do you judge the best attack?
First and foremost, we look at boss kills. Most of the time the alliance with more kills wins. That seems reasonable. But because there are only three bosses, the war can end in a tie. Three to three, zero to zero, whatever.
If it is a tie, we need a way to distinguish the better attacker. We can then go to attacker kills and exploration, which are actually two ways to reward the same thing: moving through a node. Attacker kills are really just a way of saying a node with a defender sitting on it is worth more than an empty node, but it is really all exploration. Whichever alliance explores more of the map, factoring in some nodes are more valuable, wins.
But this can *also* still end in a tie, or a very close war. We would still like a way to distinguish a 100% three boss kill vs 100% three boss kill performance. And the most logical way to do that is to consider the attacker performance for each node. Instead of just giving points for killing a node in an all or nothing way, we can grant points based on how good the attacker performance was for each node. Defender kills are a way to do that. In effect, defender kills are mathematically identical to reducing the amount of points the attacker gets every time the attacker is defeated. It can even go negative. Attackers are incentivized to attack better.
More importantly, alliance defense gets rewarded not directly for placing "good defenders" but for stopping attackers from scoring points. The focus is on being good attackers and preventing alliances from being good attackers. The focus is on attack where it should be.
When we remove defender kills and do not replace them with anything we create a situation in which we state that an attacker that takes a hundred defeats to kill a node is just as good as an attacker that takes zero defeats. We are saying we are not going to judge the attacker performance at all, except in the binary sense of all or nothing, you defeat the node or you don't. That removes a way to judge competition.
This shouldn't be a surprise. Logically, if you do not want to discourage players from attacking no matter how bad their attacking performance, you are saying you don't want to judge attacker performance. And that is tantamount to saying you do not want attacking to be a competitive activity.
This really comes down to whether you want alliance wars to be. I think all this talk about "defender kills" has masked the fact that in reality, "defender kills" represents a way to judge and reward attackers while defender diversity and defender rating points are in reality a way to get points just for placing a defender. Defender kills are an active thing, defender rating and diversity points are a passive thing. When someone says we shouldn't just get handed points for placing a Magik, we don't. We never got points for placing anything. We never really got points for "defender kills." The attacker lost points for being a poor attacker. We should have called them "attacker performance penalty points" because that is what they really are.
I just wish they would release the wars as described instead of us finding bugs that end up screwing us over and then they act like it's no big deal. They sure do fix things that affect their bottom line, but these last few war "update" failures show they don't give two **** about their players who make plans based on release notes only to find out the release notes don't match the release. If that's not fraud I don't know what is.
An Alliance War Solution that does not include Defender Kill Points
I think you will like this.
I had a thought about Diversity this morning, and single-dimension consideration of Alliance War - that is the dimension of maximizing points.
As I wrote previously, the problem with AW is that there is a Constrained Choice problem, wherein Alliance Officers are forced by circumstance to adopt a strategy designed to achieve maximum points. In the current state, that requires a maximization of diversity, defender pi, maximum # of defenders, etc. - which reduces to a single strategic option.
I understand and am in agreement with the goal of increasing the diversity selection of champions, and increasing the utility of a larger plurality of champions than is presently available.
Obviously, there is some substantial resistance within Kabam to Defender Kills as an adequate cost in the alliance war. Defender kills are a deterrence that, essentially concentrate defender selection - which is, I presume, the sticky bit.
So, I will nominate a suggestion for an alternative.
Rather than include Defender Diversity in the SCORE calculation (50 points, 125 points - it doesn't matter) you should consider including Defender Diversity in the REWARD calculation.
I will provide a couple of scenarios, and then summarize.
There are 4 strategies presented in both scenarios:
MM = Max Diversity, Min Quality
HG = High Diversity, Good Quality
GH = Good Diversity, High Quality
MH = Min Diversity, High Quality
Scenario 1: Represents the Status Quo ~ Placement, Diversity, Kills, Rating
For this example the following equation:
Point Spread = placement*(X1-Y1)+diversity*(X2-Y2)+kills*(X1-Y1)+rating*(X1*Q1-Y1*R1)
Where
X1, Y1 = # Defenders placed A, B
X2, Y2 = # DIVERSE Defenders placed A, B
Q1, R1 = Quality Defenders placed A, B (Aka average PI rating)
Per the current point structure, for two roughly evenly matched alliances, depending on diversity spread (which is dictated generally by expected quality) the point spread is overall pretty low.
I expect this is consistent with a volume of complaint posts you have seen.
Even though the current status quo has shallower point gaps between Alliance A & B, the Constrained Choice problem remains. The only viable strategic choice is to maximize diversity at the expense of quality.
For this example I have removed Diversity points from the scoring model, and I have added a second model, Rewards Multiplier.
Point Spread = placement*(X1-Y1)+kills*(X1-Y1)+rating*(X1*Q1-Y1*R1)
Rewards Multiplier = base * N * diversity.
Where
base = standard tier rewards
N = Kabam Modifier
Diversity = X2/X1
Allow me to point out several obvious conclusions.
1) The removing the Diversity from the score calculation increases the point gap between Winners & Losers, which increases variability of outcome.
2) The psychological result of increased point gap is that users do not perceive that they barely won or barely lost, a condition that leads them to assume unfair rules.
3) The strategic emphasis places the greatest likelihood of winning along the 3rd and 4th strategies (GH & MH).
4) If winning is the War is the desired outcome, then the dominant strategy is MH, Minimum Diversity, High Quality.
Along the right side of Scenario 2 you will see a rewards multiplier scheme. For the purposes of this explanation I will use a 50% multiplier, but I've included a couple of other for your benefit.
The following graphic assumes a Tier 6 Alliance in War.
At Tier 6 the base victory rewards are: 238 x 5* shards, 266 x 4* shards, 4240 loyalty.
At Tier 6 the base participation rewards are: 112 5* shards, 168 4* shards, 5450 gold, 4240 loyalty.
Along the left you will see the 4 possible strategies I have provided, along with the corresponding Rewards Multiplier.
As you can see whether you Win or Lose, the dominant strategy is MM, Maximize Diversity, Minimum Quality.
This might not be obvious.
We now have two competing dominant strategies, and a gradient between them.
Alliance leaders will need to select a strategy based on preferences that are not strictly dictated by score. By rewarding alliances for diversity even if they lose you are providing two competing incentives, and this could lead to multiple strategic selections.
Weaker alliances with low skill may choose an MM strategy to maximize the Rewards of an expected loss.
Moderate alliances with poor organization may choose a GH strategy to make best use of a limited roster.
Moderate alliances with better organization may choose a HG strategy to maintain higher rewards but try to compete for a win.
High ranking alliances may opt for an MM strategy to maximize rewards
Ultra competitive alliances may opt for an MH strategy to maximize their chance to win at the expense of some reward gain.
Most importantly, this brings a crucial element of choice to Alliance War.
Moreover, this also absolves a large contingent of alliances from the (frankly unpleasant) activity of loading 30 member's champions into a spreadsheet to pick out 150 defenders.
As you can see whether you Win or Lose, the dominant strategy is MM, Maximize Diversity, Minimum Quality.
There is a fundamental flaw with your analysis, and it is that you independently analyze the reward results for winning and losing, but winning and losing are not independent of the placement strategy. Let's look at this from the perspective of min/maxing the placement strategy. Let's use your reward tables again:
Here we see that the minimum diversity strategy when it wins offers a certain level of rewards. In a combat-driven scoring system (which I'm assuming you are presupposing because you have eliminated diversity points) this is the strategy that has the best possible chance of actually winning. Fighting an opponent alliance of roughly equal skill and roster strength you'd expect this strategy to win about half the time. So your expected return on this strategy is about (I'm going to focus on the 5* shards just to reduce the number of comparisons) 356 * 0.5 + 114 * 0.5 = 235 5* shards.
If I change my strategy to a higher diversity strategy and my opponent doesn't change strategy I will most likely lose more often than I win. Let's say I go to the "good diversity" strategy. That would offer 438 * 0.5 + 140 * 0.5 = 289 5* shards if I could somehow hold my 50/50 winning percentage. But that seems unlikely. For this strategy to actually increase my rewards I need to win more than 32% of the time. If I do, I should always do this. If I don't, I should never do this.
For your numbers, the winning percentage requirement to make shifting strategy make sense are about 25% for high diversity and about 19% for max diversity. There is a definitely break even point for each strategy, and depending on how the alliance evaluates that chance, quantitatively or qualitatively, there is a single optimal strategy.
But there is another facet to the problem that is subtle but very nasty. Your rewards depend on tier and your tier ultimately depends on your win/loss record. The equilibrium state is actually for the average alliance at any tier to roughly win about half the time. Any strategy that reduces your win percentage will eventually change your tier until your win percentage becomes 50/50. You can't employ a strategy that causes you to win only 30% of the time, because you cannot consistently win only 30% of the time. You will drop a tier if you consistently keep losing, and then your win percentage will eventually start to rise again. So the meta question becomes: is it better if you use the maximum diversity placement strategy and drop a tier, but still earn more rewards than if you were winning half the time in the higher tier because the bonus is higher than the tier loss.
This is a problem because you do not want to encourage alliances to drop tiers and *gain* rewards for doing so. That's a metagaming nightmare and would generate a whole new set of complaints.
As you can see whether you Win or Lose, the dominant strategy is MM, Maximize Diversity, Minimum Quality.
There is a fundamental flaw with your analysis, and it is that you independently analyze the reward results for winning and losing, but winning and losing are not independent of the placement strategy. Let's look at this from the perspective of min/maxing the placement strategy. Let's use your reward tables again:
Here we see that the minimum diversity strategy when it wins offers a certain level of rewards. In a combat-driven scoring system (which I'm assuming you are presupposing because you have eliminated diversity points) this is the strategy that has the best possible chance of actually winning. Fighting an opponent alliance of roughly equal skill and roster strength you'd expect this strategy to win about half the time. So your expected return on this strategy is about (I'm going to focus on the 5* shards just to reduce the number of comparisons) 356 * 0.5 + 114 * 0.5 = 235 5* shards.
If I change my strategy to a higher diversity strategy and my opponent doesn't change strategy I will most likely lose more often than I win. Let's say I go to the "good diversity" strategy. That would offer 438 * 0.5 + 140 * 0.5 = 289 5* shards if I could somehow hold my 50/50 winning percentage. But that seems unlikely. For this strategy to actually increase my rewards I need to win more than 32% of the time. If I do, I should always do this. If I don't, I should never do this.
For your numbers, the winning percentage requirement to make shifting strategy make sense are about 25% for high diversity and about 19% for max diversity. There is a definitely break even point for each strategy, and depending on how the alliance evaluates that chance, quantitatively or qualitatively, there is a single optimal strategy.
But there is another facet to the problem that is subtle but very nasty. Your rewards depend on tier and your tier ultimately depends on your win/loss record. The equilibrium state is actually for the average alliance at any tier to roughly win about half the time. Any strategy that reduces your win percentage will eventually change your tier until your win percentage becomes 50/50. You can't employ a strategy that causes you to win only 30% of the time, because you cannot consistently win only 30% of the time. You will drop a tier if you consistently keep losing, and then your win percentage will eventually start to rise again. So the meta question becomes: is it better if you use the maximum diversity placement strategy and drop a tier, but still earn more rewards than if you were winning half the time in the higher tier because the bonus is higher than the tier loss.
This is a problem because you do not want to encourage alliances to drop tiers and *gain* rewards for doing so. That's a metagaming nightmare and would generate a whole new set of complaints.
So let's discuss some assumptions.
First, under the current meta winning the war is an imperative. There are no downsides to losing. Ergo all preferences are for a maximization strategy.
However, under a quality/diversity tradeoff paradigm where the former maximizes your chance to win while the latter maximizes the potential reward gain, you have decision space to move and you have competing preferences. When you have competing preferences, you cannot strictly employ a maximization strategy unless one preference is absolute. And here, I am suggesting War be structured so that there is more than one preference possible.
Second, you are correct regarding Tier Rewards being a base element, and one that shifts the reward scale. I very much have this in mind. So yes there is a strong incentive to WIN and increase tier, however some strategic solutions - including allowing a LOSS - actually creates something important here: Uncertainty.
The #1 problem at the moment is that the preference structure, rules, and choices lead to a single strategic option, which in and of itself removes uncertainty. Knowing what my opponent will prefer, I can confidently delete strategic alternatives.
However, since the opponent has both potential and a degree of preference to allow a lose, they are more likely (that is likely at all) to choose a random strategic preference. Rather than a single alternative, there are now many. Obviously some with greater rewards than others.
By moving Diversity to the Rewards Calculation, and also by including a Kabam Modifier - I have also included a tuning mechanism so that Kabam can shift the decision-space. The probability that an opponent will select a particular option needs to be sufficiently distributed across the options such that you cannot necessarily predict the choice made by the opponent.
Oh also, allow me to point out that the Minimum Diversity, Maximum Quality (bottom one) option makes the absurd assumption that 30 people in an alliance would all choose the same five champions. That is there for reference.
Truly, the consideration should be for the top 3 strategic options:
Half the time, no matter how diverse, one alliance or another is going to lose anyway. With that in mind, certain other preferences, such as your time spent rejiggering your defense might wane.
When you weigh the extra cost necessary to make sure that defense is diverse against slightly increased rewards against a better chance to win, it's perfectly rational to waive off diversity in favor of a better chance to win.
By moving Diversity to the Rewards Calculation, and also by including a Kabam Modifier - I have also included a tuning mechanism so that Kabam can shift the decision-space. The probability that an opponent will select a particular option needs to be sufficiently distributed across the options such that you cannot necessarily predict the choice made by the opponent.
The most reasonable assumption to make here is to analyze that uncertainty by attempting to determine if there exist one or more Nash equilibriums where alliances can fall into a state where no incremental change in strategy improves the results. And the obvious starting point to search for such attractors is the maximum strength minimal diversity choice. Given your current set of parameters, I can only see two possibilities: one: there is a Nash equilibrium at the minimum diversity point, which corresponds to the solution where both sides are trying as hard as possible to force a win and win roughly half the time. Two: that point is not in equilibrium, and alliances attempting to maximize rewards without maximum defensive strength will drift downwards in tier against alliances that continue to maintain maximum strength defense. This will cause high strength alliances to drift downward to compete with lower strength ones and win relatively easily, because a strategic truth that is independent of this analysis is offense is generally stronger than defense. An alliance incentivized to deploy less than full strength defense still has no incentive to deploy anything other than full strength offense (within the limits of their rosters and situation, vis-a-vis AQ).
Regardless of where that second potential equilibrium point exists, there will be strong incentives to compete against lower strength alliances while gaining no loss in rewards. That seems to be an unavoidable problem with the system, because you can't make the diversity reward arbitrarily low to address the problem. Below a critical threshold it will cease to be an effective incentive for placing diverse defenses.
I think the simplified way to express the problem with no math is to say the way your system attempts to incentivize placing diverse - and weaker - defenses is instead of increasing the odds of winning with a diverse defense (overriding the intrinsic disadvantage) you are instead rewarding players directly for placing a diverse and weaker defense. But a weaker defense is synonymous with ultimately fighting weaker alliances - because weaker alliances lose, losing alliances drop tiers, lower tiers have less strong alliances in general. I think players would complain about offering strong alliances a direct incentive to beat up weaker alliances.
Hey guys u didnt get it yet? Do you know how they want us to spend money? Changing everytime our masteries and buying boost before place it. Everybody are now aware about diversity, so what will make you win now its gonna be the Defender rating, So, put all your boost+ suicides.After placed it, roll back your masteries to where it was, as no one now play with suicides. So you keep doing that all the matches. Not doing that, could cost you the Win.
I've retired from my competitive alliance, and the #1 reason is the new war structure. I've also stopped spending on this game, the #1 reason is the new war structure. I don't have as much fun playing this game any more, and the #1 reason is (you guessed it!) the new war structure.
Diversity sucks, make a new plan and implement it. I know I'm only one, but I'm one of many.
Hey guys u didnt get it yet? Do you know how they want us to spend money? Changing everytime our masteries and buying boost before place it. Everybody are now aware about diversity, so what will make you win now its gonna be the Defender rating, So, put all your boost+ suicides.After placed it, roll back your masteries to where it was, as no one now play with suicides. So you keep doing that all the matches. Not doing that, could cost you the Win.
Setting aside the fact that setting and resetting masteries doesn't cost a lot of money, anyone crazy enough and surrounded by twenty nine other crazy enough people to do that over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again can have my win. I would prefer to walk away with the loss and my sanity, thanks.
Hey guys u didnt get it yet? Do you know how they want us to spend money? Changing everytime our masteries and buying boost before place it. Everybody are now aware about diversity, so what will make you win now its gonna be the Defender rating, So, put all your boost+ suicides.After placed it, roll back your masteries to where it was, as no one now play with suicides. So you keep doing that all the matches. Not doing that, could cost you the Win.
Setting aside the fact that setting and resetting masteries doesn't cost a lot of money, anyone crazy enough and surrounded by twenty nine other crazy enough people to do that over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again can have my win. I would prefer to walk away with the loss and my sanity, thanks.
Thats what everybody has been doing so far. Btw setting and resetting masteries all the time cost a lot of units, and theres also the boost, you gotta put at least 3 different boost, even if you have some saved, its about time to start buying those boost to put it on. Diversity its not winning point anymore, everybody knows how to set up now. The defender rating is the one who make you win now, so boost+ suicides if you want to win. Thats not our fault, KABAM has forced us to adapt this horrible system.... What scary me is Why they don't listening the community.
Hey guys u didnt get it yet? Do you know how they want us to spend money? Changing everytime our masteries and buying boost before place it. Everybody are now aware about diversity, so what will make you win now its gonna be the Defender rating, So, put all your boost+ suicides.After placed it, roll back your masteries to where it was, as no one now play with suicides. So you keep doing that all the matches. Not doing that, could cost you the Win.
Setting aside the fact that setting and resetting masteries doesn't cost a lot of money, anyone crazy enough and surrounded by twenty nine other crazy enough people to do that over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again can have my win. I would prefer to walk away with the loss and my sanity, thanks.
Thats what everybody has been doing so far. Btw setting and resetting masteries all the time cost a lot of units, and theres also the boost, you gotta put at least 3 different boost, even if you have some saved, its about time to start buying those boost to put it on. Diversity its not winning point anymore, everybody knows how to set up now. The defender rating is the one who make you win now, so boost+ suicides if you want to win. Thats not our fault, KABAM has forced us to adapt this horrible system.... What scary me is Why they don't listening the community.
Adapting to the system is not the same as working every angle to maintain steady Wins. There's really no judgment in that comment. Players will inevitably do whatever they can to maximize efficiency. However, that can only go so far. Let's assume that everyone does the same. Same Masteries, same Boosts. I'm sure there would be variations based on other Mastery setups, but let's assume they're the same. At that point it's dependant on the Rosters people have. Which means it depends on Ranking and progressing. As I've stated, that's how the system will be rewarding overall progression and balancing the Matches. Defender Rating is really connected to the Ranking we do.
Hey guys u didnt get it yet? Do you know how they want us to spend money? Changing everytime our masteries and buying boost before place it. Everybody are now aware about diversity, so what will make you win now its gonna be the Defender rating, So, put all your boost+ suicides.After placed it, roll back your masteries to where it was, as no one now play with suicides. So you keep doing that all the matches. Not doing that, could cost you the Win.
Setting aside the fact that setting and resetting masteries doesn't cost a lot of money, anyone crazy enough and surrounded by twenty nine other crazy enough people to do that over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again can have my win. I would prefer to walk away with the loss and my sanity, thanks.
Thats what everybody has been doing so far. Btw setting and resetting masteries all the time cost a lot of units, and theres also the boost, you gotta put at least 3 different boost, even if you have some saved, its about time to start buying those boost to put it on. Diversity its not winning point anymore, everybody knows how to set up now. The defender rating is the one who make you win now, so boost+ suicides if you want to win. Thats not our fault, KABAM has forced us to adapt this horrible system.... What scary me is Why they don't listening the community.
Adapting to the system is not the same as working every angle to maintain steady Wins. There's really no judgment in that comment. Players will inevitably do whatever they can to maximize efficiency. However, that can only go so far. Let's assume that everyone does the same. Same Masteries, same Boosts. I'm sure there would be variations based on other Mastery setups, but let's assume they're the same. At that point it's dependant on the Rosters people have. Which means it depends on Ranking and progressing. As I've stated, that's how the system will be rewarding overall progression and balancing the Matches. Defender Rating is really connected to the Ranking we do.
It's not just ranking, it's sig levels too. You want the highest pi champs at max sig and boosts and masteries all set up to get your highest defender rating. It's a dumb setup. There is no real competition, it's broken. Good luck moving up in tiers for the foreseeable future. Teams are going to be stuck in lower tiers and not have a chance to move up anymore based on skill. There. Is no room for error in placement and no chance for alliances who are short one player, you can't win with less than 10 per bg unlike the original system. It's purely pay to win now and encourages account sharing if someone is away for a weekend. I thought we had seen the lowest form of money grabs in the past, but this takes the cake. Mix that in with all the bugs and busted release notes and it eliminates any integrity in the game. It forces exploits that make previous ones look like fair gaming.
Not gonna let this thread die out so here it goes...
Dear Kabam,
When I wandered across your game in the App Store I was curious, so I downloaded it and started playing.
To be honest at first I didn't think I was going to like it so I created my account with a name that I somewhat regret. Not a big deal, but I just wish I knew then what I know now.
Anyway, it was slow going at first, the fighting was fun and the levels came along quickly. The biggest problem was I kept thinking to myself "what's the end game?".
That's when I joined an alliance an lo' and behold I found this glorious thing called war. I could crush my opponents with a well placed defense and some practiced attacking skills you say? Sign me up!
My wife wouldn't even bother trying to talk to me after the kids went to bed. "I'm sorry honey the fellas need me to clear this node." The baby needs a diaper change? "I'm sorry honey this war is real close. I'm gonna need to concentrate." She wants to complain about the other ladies at work? "Honey you know I'd love to listen, but we have 10 minutes left to get this boss down"
Now I'm talking to my wife. Now I'm changing diapers. Now I'm nodding my head as she tells me the drama she had at work...
For the love of God make it stop! Bring back AW! Bring back defender kills! I beg you!
Just found out one of our competing top tier alliances recently had 6 of their members retire from the game after 2+ years of playing together.... due to muh Diversity Parade "wars" making the game so freakin' boring.
Please .... for the love of all things holy .... #BringBackDefenderKillPoints
Just found out one of our competing top tier alliances recently had 6 of their members retire from the game after 2+ years of playing together.... due to muh Diversity Parade "wars" making the game so freakin' boring.
Please .... for the love of all things holy .... #BringBackDefenderKillPoints
It's happening to loads of alliances, we've lost a few an a few more have given notice saying they need a break until war is fun again. The only problem is if kabam stick with flogging this dead horse then it's never going to be fun again.
Recently our entire alliance decided by majority vote, to "relocate" and disassociate ourselves from our top tier "big brother" alliances sharing the same name(most OG members left after 12.0).
This was basically our groups last option to try and keep the team together and our hopes afloat that the game will improve and no one will be compelled to quit MCOC permenantly. So with a fresh new start, we decided to give AW a look and got a match.........
This is a vivid illustration of just one of the many problems(correctable) I along with countless others saw with AW from the old and the new. I felt bad for our opponents because only a couple folks placed defense and they obviously gave up after seeing our profile. No one even joined ATK phase and there's less than 5hrs left. And where is the fun for us? No champs to fight, already given win from the moment atk phase started......
IMO, MCOC post 12.0 update is continuing on a downward spiral towards failure with the main reason appearing to be, the ineffectiveness of Kabam to sort out issues in light of all the time passed and suggestions/concerns that have been voiced by the community.
@KamalaWantsToPlayToo we are kindred spirits, Bravo my friend! Your "letter" gave me the "something got in my eye" thing that happens on rare occasion. Lol
They really need to bring Defense kills back in aw now it is only about Who wants to spend more items and units for the win If you go for Diversity oppenent will easily get 100% aw is not any fun at all it completely ruins the game bring Defense kills back So the game is more fun and challenging to play
This is still garbage. Why does Kabam assume that their ideas are better than the community? AW is worthless. Again, we both 100% a map, we have half the kills as our opponent, and lose because of defender rating. Every "iteration" you are implementing makes it even easier to see who will win before attack even starts. Any alliance that takes AW seriously has figured out how to get 150 diversity. So now its simply down to defender rating.
Also...please explain this to me. Defender kills were removed to prevent people from feeling bad about dying to an opponent and giving up - yet you now claim that the goal is for alliances to not be able to easily 100% a map (i.e., making people give up on a single node because it's too hard to defeat). PLEASE TELL ME HOW THIS MAKES ANY SENSE?!?!?! It's the same concept.
AW is now just a matter how how much Kabam can make on selling boosts and reworking masteries 6 times a week. Real fun. So much fun.
I'm posting here to avoid creating another thread. Kabam mods: can we please have an update about your plans for AW? It's obvious that the current plans (1) weren't fully implemented and (2) wouldn't have solved the problems in T1-T3 even if they had been.
Contrary to Kabam Miike's claims, our best strategy is not placing a defender who will get kills. The likelihood of stopping an attack is too low; our best strategy is placing a unique defender with high PI ... which means placing a champ with suicide masteries is a better strategy than one without, despite the fact that those masteries make it easier to kill the champ.
You can claim that making the nodes harder will fix this, but do you really want a map where players get so discouraged after fighting nodes that they give up and let their BG fail? Do you understand how this will work socially in alliances? 'Cause it seems pretty toxic to me; and if people are finishing their lanes, then we're back to scoring wars based on diversity and defender rating.
We're going to win our current match (assuming our last BG doesn't choke and finishes their map -- all 5 other maps are already clear, and they only have a few nodes + the boss left) because our opponents only had 29 players. Our opponents knew they were likely to lose before the match began -- regardless of how well they play, they can't make up for the score for an additional 5 unique defenders placed, assuming we don't screw up badly. This design makes me very sad.
Here, let me help you out: we haven't rolled out the harder nodes yet, and we don't want to make changes before we give this new version of AW a chance. We continue to collect data and are looking to keep updating AW but we do want to see how the latest round of changes work before balancing it further.
We stopped caring about AW with this system. We place, we fight but we don't care anymore. No revives, no potions, no nothing because it's stupid, REALLY STUPID, to use items for what is always a gambling result. If we win we win, if we lose we lose. WE DON'T CARE ANYMORE.
Thank you... You are ignoring us, we are ignoring you.
Comments
I think calling it "defender kills" masks the issue, because it makes it seem like we are rewarding the mere placement of a defender. That makes it easy to dismiss. But in fact, defender kills are not about defenders alone. Defender kills are a way to reward good attackers
I think most players interested in a competitive alliance war would agree that ultimately, the winner should be the alliance that performs the most effective attack. How do you judge the best attack?
First and foremost, we look at boss kills. Most of the time the alliance with more kills wins. That seems reasonable. But because there are only three bosses, the war can end in a tie. Three to three, zero to zero, whatever.
If it is a tie, we need a way to distinguish the better attacker. We can then go to attacker kills and exploration, which are actually two ways to reward the same thing: moving through a node. Attacker kills are really just a way of saying a node with a defender sitting on it is worth more than an empty node, but it is really all exploration. Whichever alliance explores more of the map, factoring in some nodes are more valuable, wins.
But this can *also* still end in a tie, or a very close war. We would still like a way to distinguish a 100% three boss kill vs 100% three boss kill performance. And the most logical way to do that is to consider the attacker performance for each node. Instead of just giving points for killing a node in an all or nothing way, we can grant points based on how good the attacker performance was for each node. Defender kills are a way to do that. In effect, defender kills are mathematically identical to reducing the amount of points the attacker gets every time the attacker is defeated. It can even go negative. Attackers are incentivized to attack better.
More importantly, alliance defense gets rewarded not directly for placing "good defenders" but for stopping attackers from scoring points. The focus is on being good attackers and preventing alliances from being good attackers. The focus is on attack where it should be.
When we remove defender kills and do not replace them with anything we create a situation in which we state that an attacker that takes a hundred defeats to kill a node is just as good as an attacker that takes zero defeats. We are saying we are not going to judge the attacker performance at all, except in the binary sense of all or nothing, you defeat the node or you don't. That removes a way to judge competition.
This shouldn't be a surprise. Logically, if you do not want to discourage players from attacking no matter how bad their attacking performance, you are saying you don't want to judge attacker performance. And that is tantamount to saying you do not want attacking to be a competitive activity.
This really comes down to whether you want alliance wars to be. I think all this talk about "defender kills" has masked the fact that in reality, "defender kills" represents a way to judge and reward attackers while defender diversity and defender rating points are in reality a way to get points just for placing a defender. Defender kills are an active thing, defender rating and diversity points are a passive thing. When someone says we shouldn't just get handed points for placing a Magik, we don't. We never got points for placing anything. We never really got points for "defender kills." The attacker lost points for being a poor attacker. We should have called them "attacker performance penalty points" because that is what they really are.
An Alliance War Solution that does not include Defender Kill Points
I think you will like this.
I had a thought about Diversity this morning, and single-dimension consideration of Alliance War - that is the dimension of maximizing points.
As I wrote previously, the problem with AW is that there is a Constrained Choice problem, wherein Alliance Officers are forced by circumstance to adopt a strategy designed to achieve maximum points. In the current state, that requires a maximization of diversity, defender pi, maximum # of defenders, etc. - which reduces to a single strategic option.
I understand and am in agreement with the goal of increasing the diversity selection of champions, and increasing the utility of a larger plurality of champions than is presently available.
Obviously, there is some substantial resistance within Kabam to Defender Kills as an adequate cost in the alliance war. Defender kills are a deterrence that, essentially concentrate defender selection - which is, I presume, the sticky bit.
So, I will nominate a suggestion for an alternative.
Rather than include Defender Diversity in the SCORE calculation (50 points, 125 points - it doesn't matter) you should consider including Defender Diversity in the REWARD calculation.
I will provide a couple of scenarios, and then summarize.
There are 4 strategies presented in both scenarios:
MM = Max Diversity, Min Quality
HG = High Diversity, Good Quality
GH = Good Diversity, High Quality
MH = Min Diversity, High Quality
Scenario 1: Represents the Status Quo ~ Placement, Diversity, Kills, Rating
For this example the following equation:
Point Spread = placement*(X1-Y1)+diversity*(X2-Y2)+kills*(X1-Y1)+rating*(X1*Q1-Y1*R1)
Where
X1, Y1 = # Defenders placed A, B
X2, Y2 = # DIVERSE Defenders placed A, B
Q1, R1 = Quality Defenders placed A, B (Aka average PI rating)
Per the current point structure, for two roughly evenly matched alliances, depending on diversity spread (which is dictated generally by expected quality) the point spread is overall pretty low.
I expect this is consistent with a volume of complaint posts you have seen.
Even though the current status quo has shallower point gaps between Alliance A & B, the Constrained Choice problem remains. The only viable strategic choice is to maximize diversity at the expense of quality.
Scenario 2: Placement, Kills, Rating = Score, Diversity = Points Multiplier
For this example I have removed Diversity points from the scoring model, and I have added a second model, Rewards Multiplier.
Point Spread = placement*(X1-Y1)+kills*(X1-Y1)+rating*(X1*Q1-Y1*R1)
Rewards Multiplier = base * N * diversity.
Where
base = standard tier rewards
N = Kabam Modifier
Diversity = X2/X1
Allow me to point out several obvious conclusions.
1) The removing the Diversity from the score calculation increases the point gap between Winners & Losers, which increases variability of outcome.
2) The psychological result of increased point gap is that users do not perceive that they barely won or barely lost, a condition that leads them to assume unfair rules.
3) The strategic emphasis places the greatest likelihood of winning along the 3rd and 4th strategies (GH & MH).
4) If winning is the War is the desired outcome, then the dominant strategy is MH, Minimum Diversity, High Quality.
Along the right side of Scenario 2 you will see a rewards multiplier scheme. For the purposes of this explanation I will use a 50% multiplier, but I've included a couple of other for your benefit.
The following graphic assumes a Tier 6 Alliance in War.
At Tier 6 the base victory rewards are: 238 x 5* shards, 266 x 4* shards, 4240 loyalty.
At Tier 6 the base participation rewards are: 112 5* shards, 168 4* shards, 5450 gold, 4240 loyalty.
Along the left you will see the 4 possible strategies I have provided, along with the corresponding Rewards Multiplier.
As you can see whether you Win or Lose, the dominant strategy is MM, Maximize Diversity, Minimum Quality.
This might not be obvious.
We now have two competing dominant strategies, and a gradient between them.
Alliance leaders will need to select a strategy based on preferences that are not strictly dictated by score. By rewarding alliances for diversity even if they lose you are providing two competing incentives, and this could lead to multiple strategic selections.
Weaker alliances with low skill may choose an MM strategy to maximize the Rewards of an expected loss.
Moderate alliances with poor organization may choose a GH strategy to make best use of a limited roster.
Moderate alliances with better organization may choose a HG strategy to maintain higher rewards but try to compete for a win.
High ranking alliances may opt for an MM strategy to maximize rewards
Ultra competitive alliances may opt for an MH strategy to maximize their chance to win at the expense of some reward gain.
Most importantly, this brings a crucial element of choice to Alliance War.
Moreover, this also absolves a large contingent of alliances from the (frankly unpleasant) activity of loading 30 member's champions into a spreadsheet to pick out 150 defenders.
Diversity needs to go.
#BringBackDefenderKillPoints
There is a fundamental flaw with your analysis, and it is that you independently analyze the reward results for winning and losing, but winning and losing are not independent of the placement strategy. Let's look at this from the perspective of min/maxing the placement strategy. Let's use your reward tables again:
Here we see that the minimum diversity strategy when it wins offers a certain level of rewards. In a combat-driven scoring system (which I'm assuming you are presupposing because you have eliminated diversity points) this is the strategy that has the best possible chance of actually winning. Fighting an opponent alliance of roughly equal skill and roster strength you'd expect this strategy to win about half the time. So your expected return on this strategy is about (I'm going to focus on the 5* shards just to reduce the number of comparisons) 356 * 0.5 + 114 * 0.5 = 235 5* shards.
If I change my strategy to a higher diversity strategy and my opponent doesn't change strategy I will most likely lose more often than I win. Let's say I go to the "good diversity" strategy. That would offer 438 * 0.5 + 140 * 0.5 = 289 5* shards if I could somehow hold my 50/50 winning percentage. But that seems unlikely. For this strategy to actually increase my rewards I need to win more than 32% of the time. If I do, I should always do this. If I don't, I should never do this.
For your numbers, the winning percentage requirement to make shifting strategy make sense are about 25% for high diversity and about 19% for max diversity. There is a definitely break even point for each strategy, and depending on how the alliance evaluates that chance, quantitatively or qualitatively, there is a single optimal strategy.
But there is another facet to the problem that is subtle but very nasty. Your rewards depend on tier and your tier ultimately depends on your win/loss record. The equilibrium state is actually for the average alliance at any tier to roughly win about half the time. Any strategy that reduces your win percentage will eventually change your tier until your win percentage becomes 50/50. You can't employ a strategy that causes you to win only 30% of the time, because you cannot consistently win only 30% of the time. You will drop a tier if you consistently keep losing, and then your win percentage will eventually start to rise again. So the meta question becomes: is it better if you use the maximum diversity placement strategy and drop a tier, but still earn more rewards than if you were winning half the time in the higher tier because the bonus is higher than the tier loss.
This is a problem because you do not want to encourage alliances to drop tiers and *gain* rewards for doing so. That's a metagaming nightmare and would generate a whole new set of complaints.
So let's discuss some assumptions.
First, under the current meta winning the war is an imperative. There are no downsides to losing. Ergo all preferences are for a maximization strategy.
However, under a quality/diversity tradeoff paradigm where the former maximizes your chance to win while the latter maximizes the potential reward gain, you have decision space to move and you have competing preferences. When you have competing preferences, you cannot strictly employ a maximization strategy unless one preference is absolute. And here, I am suggesting War be structured so that there is more than one preference possible.
Second, you are correct regarding Tier Rewards being a base element, and one that shifts the reward scale. I very much have this in mind. So yes there is a strong incentive to WIN and increase tier, however some strategic solutions - including allowing a LOSS - actually creates something important here: Uncertainty.
The #1 problem at the moment is that the preference structure, rules, and choices lead to a single strategic option, which in and of itself removes uncertainty. Knowing what my opponent will prefer, I can confidently delete strategic alternatives.
However, since the opponent has both potential and a degree of preference to allow a lose, they are more likely (that is likely at all) to choose a random strategic preference. Rather than a single alternative, there are now many. Obviously some with greater rewards than others.
By moving Diversity to the Rewards Calculation, and also by including a Kabam Modifier - I have also included a tuning mechanism so that Kabam can shift the decision-space. The probability that an opponent will select a particular option needs to be sufficiently distributed across the options such that you cannot necessarily predict the choice made by the opponent.
Truly, the consideration should be for the top 3 strategic options:
Half the time, no matter how diverse, one alliance or another is going to lose anyway. With that in mind, certain other preferences, such as your time spent rejiggering your defense might wane.
When you weigh the extra cost necessary to make sure that defense is diverse against slightly increased rewards against a better chance to win, it's perfectly rational to waive off diversity in favor of a better chance to win.
The most reasonable assumption to make here is to analyze that uncertainty by attempting to determine if there exist one or more Nash equilibriums where alliances can fall into a state where no incremental change in strategy improves the results. And the obvious starting point to search for such attractors is the maximum strength minimal diversity choice. Given your current set of parameters, I can only see two possibilities: one: there is a Nash equilibrium at the minimum diversity point, which corresponds to the solution where both sides are trying as hard as possible to force a win and win roughly half the time. Two: that point is not in equilibrium, and alliances attempting to maximize rewards without maximum defensive strength will drift downwards in tier against alliances that continue to maintain maximum strength defense. This will cause high strength alliances to drift downward to compete with lower strength ones and win relatively easily, because a strategic truth that is independent of this analysis is offense is generally stronger than defense. An alliance incentivized to deploy less than full strength defense still has no incentive to deploy anything other than full strength offense (within the limits of their rosters and situation, vis-a-vis AQ).
Regardless of where that second potential equilibrium point exists, there will be strong incentives to compete against lower strength alliances while gaining no loss in rewards. That seems to be an unavoidable problem with the system, because you can't make the diversity reward arbitrarily low to address the problem. Below a critical threshold it will cease to be an effective incentive for placing diverse defenses.
I think the simplified way to express the problem with no math is to say the way your system attempts to incentivize placing diverse - and weaker - defenses is instead of increasing the odds of winning with a diverse defense (overriding the intrinsic disadvantage) you are instead rewarding players directly for placing a diverse and weaker defense. But a weaker defense is synonymous with ultimately fighting weaker alliances - because weaker alliances lose, losing alliances drop tiers, lower tiers have less strong alliances in general. I think players would complain about offering strong alliances a direct incentive to beat up weaker alliances.
Yay, another loss where we outperformed our opponents!
Diversity sucks, make a new plan and implement it. I know I'm only one, but I'm one of many.
Setting aside the fact that setting and resetting masteries doesn't cost a lot of money, anyone crazy enough and surrounded by twenty nine other crazy enough people to do that over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again can have my win. I would prefer to walk away with the loss and my sanity, thanks.
Thats what everybody has been doing so far. Btw setting and resetting masteries all the time cost a lot of units, and theres also the boost, you gotta put at least 3 different boost, even if you have some saved, its about time to start buying those boost to put it on. Diversity its not winning point anymore, everybody knows how to set up now. The defender rating is the one who make you win now, so boost+ suicides if you want to win. Thats not our fault, KABAM has forced us to adapt this horrible system.... What scary me is Why they don't listening the community.
Adapting to the system is not the same as working every angle to maintain steady Wins. There's really no judgment in that comment. Players will inevitably do whatever they can to maximize efficiency. However, that can only go so far. Let's assume that everyone does the same. Same Masteries, same Boosts. I'm sure there would be variations based on other Mastery setups, but let's assume they're the same. At that point it's dependant on the Rosters people have. Which means it depends on Ranking and progressing. As I've stated, that's how the system will be rewarding overall progression and balancing the Matches. Defender Rating is really connected to the Ranking we do.
It's not just ranking, it's sig levels too. You want the highest pi champs at max sig and boosts and masteries all set up to get your highest defender rating. It's a dumb setup. There is no real competition, it's broken. Good luck moving up in tiers for the foreseeable future. Teams are going to be stuck in lower tiers and not have a chance to move up anymore based on skill. There. Is no room for error in placement and no chance for alliances who are short one player, you can't win with less than 10 per bg unlike the original system. It's purely pay to win now and encourages account sharing if someone is away for a weekend. I thought we had seen the lowest form of money grabs in the past, but this takes the cake. Mix that in with all the bugs and busted release notes and it eliminates any integrity in the game. It forces exploits that make previous ones look like fair gaming.
Please #BringBackDefenderKillPoints before more hardcore players (many of which used to spend big chunks of $$) start to drift away.
Dear Kabam,
When I wandered across your game in the App Store I was curious, so I downloaded it and started playing.
To be honest at first I didn't think I was going to like it so I created my account with a name that I somewhat regret. Not a big deal, but I just wish I knew then what I know now.
Anyway, it was slow going at first, the fighting was fun and the levels came along quickly. The biggest problem was I kept thinking to myself "what's the end game?".
That's when I joined an alliance an lo' and behold I found this glorious thing called war. I could crush my opponents with a well placed defense and some practiced attacking skills you say? Sign me up!
My wife wouldn't even bother trying to talk to me after the kids went to bed. "I'm sorry honey the fellas need me to clear this node." The baby needs a diaper change? "I'm sorry honey this war is real close. I'm gonna need to concentrate." She wants to complain about the other ladies at work? "Honey you know I'd love to listen, but we have 10 minutes left to get this boss down"
Now I'm talking to my wife. Now I'm changing diapers. Now I'm nodding my head as she tells me the drama she had at work...
For the love of God make it stop! Bring back AW! Bring back defender kills! I beg you!
Signed,
The Married Men of MCOC
Please .... for the love of all things holy .... #BringBackDefenderKillPoints
It's happening to loads of alliances, we've lost a few an a few more have given notice saying they need a break until war is fun again. The only problem is if kabam stick with flogging this dead horse then it's never going to be fun again.
Recently our entire alliance decided by majority vote, to "relocate" and disassociate ourselves from our top tier "big brother" alliances sharing the same name(most OG members left after 12.0).
This was basically our groups last option to try and keep the team together and our hopes afloat that the game will improve and no one will be compelled to quit MCOC permenantly. So with a fresh new start, we decided to give AW a look and got a match.........
This is a vivid illustration of just one of the many problems(correctable) I along with countless others saw with AW from the old and the new. I felt bad for our opponents because only a couple folks placed defense and they obviously gave up after seeing our profile. No one even joined ATK phase and there's less than 5hrs left. And where is the fun for us? No champs to fight, already given win from the moment atk phase started......
IMO, MCOC post 12.0 update is continuing on a downward spiral towards failure with the main reason appearing to be, the ineffectiveness of Kabam to sort out issues in light of all the time passed and suggestions/concerns that have been voiced by the community.
Also...please explain this to me. Defender kills were removed to prevent people from feeling bad about dying to an opponent and giving up - yet you now claim that the goal is for alliances to not be able to easily 100% a map (i.e., making people give up on a single node because it's too hard to defeat). PLEASE TELL ME HOW THIS MAKES ANY SENSE?!?!?! It's the same concept.
AW is now just a matter how how much Kabam can make on selling boosts and reworking masteries 6 times a week. Real fun. So much fun.
Here, let me help you out: we haven't rolled out the harder nodes yet, and we don't want to make changes before we give this new version of AW a chance. We continue to collect data and are looking to keep updating AW but we do want to see how the latest round of changes work before balancing it further.
That, in a nutshell, is their response.
Thank you... You are ignoring us, we are ignoring you.
Now if u ask me this doesn't look right.
A war shouldn't be lost or won based on defender rating.
This is what every war looks like in my alliance.
Win or lose. It always comes down to defender rating...
As I've been saying
With everything done right in every point based category, the only thing that determines the outcome is defender rating.
There is ABSOLUTELY NO BALANCE between skill and rating in this new war point system