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

Kabam Miike

Hey Summoners, we have another update for you all.

Tomorrow, we’ll be debuting our next refinement on the Hard, Challenger, and Expert Maps in Alliance Wars.

As we work towards our previously stated goals of making Alliance Wars more engaging, challenging, and varied, we’ve gathered your feedback and collected lots of data. We’ve made a few adjustments as we’ve gone along, and have been getting closer and closer to where we want Alliance Wars to be.

After introducing some changes to some of the nodes of these 3 maps recently, we’ve gotten closer to where we were in terms of difficulty in the previous iteration of Alliance Wars, and moving the emphasis back towards making informed decisions on the combinations of Defender and Nodes. We still feel there are additional changes and improvements we can make, and we are paying close attention to the performance and opinion of the mode.

This iteration of node adjustments will focus on some of the more high value locations on the map, and will introduce some newer buffs that you may have seen in Act 5.

We’ll be monitoring these changes and the effect they have on Alliance Wars moving forward, and will continue to make adjustments as necessary. Once you’ve had some experience with the Map, and have ran through it a couple times, come back here to share your thoughts!

hurricant

Still not listening. It's unbelievable.

Voluntaris

keep this up @Kabam Miike and majority of top tier alliances will fall apart due to players quitting

#BringBackDefenderKillPoints

Vorvancos

You do not listen to what your players say. You do it wrong and you know that very well. Amateurs !!!

Raganator

You still make zero sense. Don't want people to feel discourage so take away defender kills, so just make nodes harder to discourage people. What a joke. So creative over there at Kabam....throwing spaghetti at the wall (or nodes, as the case may be).

At least you convinced me to steer clear of today's t2a offer. No need to polish the brass on the Titanic.

unknown

This content has been removed.

Kabam Miike

Raganator wrote: »

You still make zero sense. Don't want people to feel discourage so take away defender kills, so just make nodes harder to discourage people. Stupid.

The "discouraged" comment is surrounding the idea of not taking on a fight for the sake of not giving the other Alliance Points. This causes people to make the choice to just not fight. Not fighting in a war should never be the optimal strategy.

These changes are being made to move some of the emphasis away from Defender Diversity, and back on to making educated choices with your Defender placement. Before jumping to "This won't work", give the map a couple runs through. This will also help us gather more data on any further adjustments that might need to be made.

FPC3

So, my alliance recently had some roster changes. With that we wanted to shuffle some players around to different BGs to make things more evenly powerful. What we realized, is that it takes SO MUCH effort to properly figure out who has the best version of what champion to place for FREAKING Diversity, that we couldn't even make a simple BG shuffle without spending hours upon hours of people sending screenshots of their champs, creating FREAKING spreadsheets...

THIS IS NOT FUN, KABAM. Diversity is frustrating, causes more problems then it helps, AND on top of that, people can't place the champs they want because we'll lose points. How many more people need to voice their complaints before you admit that it is NOT a good addition to Wars?!?!? FFS...

R4GE

2 changes made to war system, both involved buffs to nodes.

After the 1st time you buffed nodes pages among pages were argued that we needed changes to the scoring system. Please point out the changes you made that were from the majority feedback to show us you are listening.

Voluntaris

Kabam Miike wrote: »

Raganator wrote: »

You still make zero sense. Don't want people to feel discourage so take away defender kills, so just make nodes harder to discourage people. Stupid.

The "discouraged" comment is surrounding the idea of not taking on a fight for the sake of not giving the other Alliance Points. This causes people to make the choice to just not fight. Not fighting in a war should never be the optimal strategy.

These changes are being made to move some of the emphasis away from Defender Diversity, and back on to making educated choices with your Defender placement. Before jumping to "This won't work", give the map a couple runs through. This will also help us gather more data on any further adjustments that might need to be made.

this will not work b/c we will STILL 100% the map, we will STILL max diversity, therefore the deciding factor will STILL BE DEFENDER RATING.

So when we ask our opponent what their defender rating is at the start of war, we will STILL already know who will win the war, no matter how well we play.

@DNA3000 has explained this many times already in various different ways, and you & Kabam continue to ignore it.

#BringBackDefenderKillPoints

Raganator

Kabam Miike wrote: »

These changes are being made to move some of the emphasis away from Defender Diversity, and back on to making educated choices with your Defender placement. [/color]

This also makes zero sense. Defender placement won't matter. Diversity and defender rating will remain the deciding factor. All this does is potentially make us change attackers. Bravo.

NevvB

Since you increased the difficulty again, doesnt that mean we should get extra rewards? You’ve made aw harder twice already but nothing about rewards have been changed.

hurricant

Kabam Miike wrote: »

Raganator wrote: »

You still make zero sense. Don't want people to feel discourage so take away defender kills, so just make nodes harder to discourage people. Stupid.

The "discouraged" comment is surrounding the idea of not taking on a fight for the sake of not giving the other Alliance Points. This causes people to make the choice to just not fight. Not fighting in a war should never be the optimal strategy.

These changes are being made to move some of the emphasis away from Defender Diversity, and back on to making educated choices with your Defender placement. Before jumping to "This won't work", give the map a couple runs through. This will also help us gather more data on any further adjustments that might need to be made.

So instead, people will be forced to buy expensive revives and expensive potions because that's what every team is doing since there is nothing stopping teams from buying wins. That's not how a war is competitive. That's just who has the bigger wallet and which alliance has been around longer to rank their team up higher.

R4GE

Kabam Miike wrote: »

Raganator wrote: »

You still make zero sense. Don't want people to feel discourage so take away defender kills, so just make nodes harder to discourage people. Stupid.

The "discouraged" comment is surrounding the idea of not taking on a fight for the sake of not giving the other Alliance Points. This causes people to make the choice to just not fight. Not fighting in a war should never be the optimal strategy.

These changes are being made to move some of the emphasis away from Defender Diversity, and back on to making educated choices with your Defender placement. Before jumping to "This won't work", give the map a couple runs through. This will also help us gather more data on any further adjustments that might need to be made.

Did you miss the feedback where people were discouraged to even bother to attack, join, or use items because it was obvious from the start the opposing alliance had the higher defender rating and was ultimately gonna win?

GroundedWisdom

Indrick781 wrote: »

And yet the rewards still suck. Go figure.

I'm assuming they may look at the Rewards after the system is closer to what they're going for. I know that it was mentioned previously that they would be looked at.

Greywarden

Kabam Miike wrote: »

Raganator wrote: »

You still make zero sense. Don't want people to feel discourage so take away defender kills, so just make nodes harder to discourage people. Stupid.

The "discouraged" comment is surrounding the idea of not taking on a fight for the sake of not giving the other Alliance Points. This causes people to make the choice to just not fight. Not fighting in a war should never be the optimal strategy.

These changes are being made to move some of the emphasis away from Defender Diversity, and back on to making educated choices with your Defender placement. Before jumping to "This won't work", give the map a couple runs through. This will also help us gather more data on any further adjustments that might need to be made.

This doesn't change people spamming items to get through a map. Making nodes harder doesn't stop a group of whales from dying 100+ times and still winning against a group that has died half as much.

There is no positive to making the nodes harder, skilled players will get through just about anything and spenders will get through through their wallet. The main group of players being hurt here is everybody else which I would have to assume is the majority of the player base.

R4GE

GroundedWisdom wrote: »

Indrick781 wrote: »

And yet the rewards still suck. Go figure.

I'm assuming they may look at the Rewards after the system is closer to what they're going for. I know that it.was mentioned previously that they would be looked at.

While we finally have Miikes attention would you mind not blowing this thread off its rails with assumptions while we try to get some feedback from a mod? Thanks

GodMan114

hurricant wrote: »

Viper1987 wrote: »

So we are currently in a war that we will lose no matter what. I am not trying to brag, but our alliance is actually pretty skilled. So much so that we constantly keep getting matched up with alliances with a higher rating than ours. With the new system, the war is already over before it started. We don't even focus on diversity anymore, because what's the point? Defender rating just kills us. Our only hope is that we build a strong enough defense to try and stop them. But since we are in tier 1, nobody stops. They just spend through the roof to 100% everything.

As a side note, you guys claim that this new system was designed not to discourage people that get knocked out. It encourages them to revive and use items to get back into the fight. Why on earth would we do that knowing the war is a loss from the start? When a 12M alliance is up against a 13-15M alliance there is absolutely zero point in people using items because it's a loss anyway. Even though we have 3-4x the defender kills we still lose. This system is flawed. You have to change it. It doesn't work!

Same issue here. We frequently have less deaths, but we played above our rating in old wars, so we were constantly matched up against higher rated alliances and always won. Now, we are being punished for having a low rating while still getting matched up with bigger alliances. It's bs. This is not fun. Please bring back defender kills and stop punishing smaller alliances.

I couldn't agree more. AW is not fun anymore. It's completely BS. What's sad is EVERYONE knows it's flawed, yet Kabam still allows it. I spend a decent amount in game, and spending less and less as days go on, and I think a lot of players I know are doing the same.

We are 10.5M. We've been in Tier1 in war, but when we get matched up with a 13-14M alliance, it's almost inevitable that we will lose because of their defender rating. You see, a smaller alliance can beat a bigger alliance with SKILL, by taking less deaths, and causing more for the opponent.

Now, take in the fact that EVERYONE spends, which means everyone will get 100%, and it will always be a tie breaker. A tie breaker, in this flawed system, will ALWAYS go to the higher alliance. How is that fair? How is this even still going on?

This system is horrible... Either it's a bunch of children coming up with these tactics, or it's a ploy for something else... more $$.

AW is no longer fun.

-An extremely, dissatisfied (STILL) member

bigmull1

Bane and Spite in War. ouch guys. ouch

hurricant

GodMan114 wrote: »

hurricant wrote: »

Viper1987 wrote: »

So we are currently in a war that we will lose no matter what. I am not trying to brag, but our alliance is actually pretty skilled. So much so that we constantly keep getting matched up with alliances with a higher rating than ours. With the new system, the war is already over before it started. We don't even focus on diversity anymore, because what's the point? Defender rating just kills us. Our only hope is that we build a strong enough defense to try and stop them. But since we are in tier 1, nobody stops. They just spend through the roof to 100% everything.

As a side note, you guys claim that this new system was designed not to discourage people that get knocked out. It encourages them to revive and use items to get back into the fight. Why on earth would we do that knowing the war is a loss from the start? When a 12M alliance is up against a 13-15M alliance there is absolutely zero point in people using items because it's a loss anyway. Even though we have 3-4x the defender kills we still lose. This system is flawed. You have to change it. It doesn't work!

Same issue here. We frequently have less deaths, but we played above our rating in old wars, so we were constantly matched up against higher rated alliances and always won. Now, we are being punished for having a low rating while still getting matched up with bigger alliances. It's bs. This is not fun. Please bring back defender kills and stop punishing smaller alliances.

I couldn't agree more. AW is not fun anymore. It's completely BS. What's sad is EVERYONE knows it's flawed, yet Kabam still allows it. I spend a decent amount in game, and spending less and less as days go on, and I think a lot of players I know are doing the same.

We are 10.5M. We've been in Tier1 in war, but when we get matched up with a 13-14M alliance, it's almost inevitable that we will lose because of their defender rating. You see, a smaller alliance can beat a bigger alliance with SKILL, by taking less deaths, and causing more for the opponent.

Now, take in the fact that EVERYONE spends, which means everyone will get 100%, and it will always be a tie breaker. A tie breaker, in this flawed system, will ALWAYS go to the higher alliance. How is that fair? How is this even still going on?

This system is horrible... Either it's a bunch of children coming up with these tactics, or it's a ploy for something else... more $$.

AW is no longer fun.

-An extremely, dissatisfied (STILL) member

Ironically people have probably been spending less because war is BS and not fun. If you're matched up against a higher alliance, what's the point of using items if they 100% the map? I would be willing to spend if war was still fun and competitive and all these changes are having the opposite effect on many people

Kabam Miike

R4GE wrote: »

2 changes made to war system, both involved buffs to nodes.

After the 1st time you buffed nodes pages among pages were argued that we needed changes to the scoring system. Please point out the changes you made that were from the majority feedback to show us you are listening.

The node changes were directly linked to players being worried that their rosters were no longer useful in Alliance Wars because of Diversity. This pointed to a problem where the Map was not providing enough of a challenge, so that Defender Diversity was making the decisions on who won, and not acting as the tie breaker.

As we said, we're still looking into more revisions that may need to be made after, but this was based on your guys feedback.

FPC3

This whole new War iteration process has been one frustrating disappointment after another, with NO end in sight, NO sign that Kabam is actually listening to the feedback of the people playing their game...

And this line: "The "discouraged" comment is surrounding the idea of not taking on a fight for the sake of not giving the other Alliance Points. This causes people to make the choice to just not fight. Not fighting in a war should never be the optimal strategy."

Why don't you let *us* decide that for ourselves, instead of telling us the way we should play???

unknown

This content has been removed.

Raganator

At this rate, they will continue to buff nodes until players are literally required expend their 15 item limit before taking down the bosses. Measures skill, but more importantly, Kabam's bank account.

Donyb

In my own personal opinion these node changes and any future node changes will not change anything top allys will still 100 regardless today’s update is very disappointing and victors will still be those that have the higher defender ratings on their tos

R4GE

Kabam Miike wrote: »

R4GE wrote: »

2 changes made to war system, both involved buffs to nodes.

After the 1st time you buffed nodes pages among pages were argued that we needed changes to the scoring system. Please point out the changes you made that were from the majority feedback to show us you are listening.

The node changes were directly linked to players being worried that their rosters were no longer useful in Alliance Wars because of Diversity. This pointed to a problem where the Map was not providing enough of a challenge, so that Defender Diversity was making the decisions on who won, and not acting as the tie breaker.

As we said, we're still looking into more revisions that may need to be made after, but this was based on your guys feedback.

That makes no sense. People were worried their old defenders no longer had a use in Aw because diversity ruled. Changing nodes didn't change the fact that their old defenders were still useless and had to stay out of placement for unique defenders.
Diversity and defender rating is winner. Old defenders still useless.

You missed all feedback that the issue lies in the scoring system.

StavelotXote

Add: Act 5 buffs, increased difficulty

Do Not Add: Better rewards, fun, defender kills, value in balancing defender rating and diversity

Last time "a few runs" was what we were sold on, we got the current version of AW. Lol next change will be in December. Could you at least remove or loosening the exploration requirements for loss rewards because it's pretty bad to lose do to your poor scoring method- especially when you seem to be so stalwart on keeping it and making 30 people waste 48 hours of their time in a loss that will already be decided before the matchup starts

unknown

This content has been removed.

hurricant

Kabam Miike wrote: »

R4GE wrote: »

2 changes made to war system, both involved buffs to nodes.

After the 1st time you buffed nodes pages among pages were argued that we needed changes to the scoring system. Please point out the changes you made that were from the majority feedback to show us you are listening.

The node changes were directly linked to players being worried that their rosters were no longer useful in Alliance Wars because of Diversity. This pointed to a problem where the Map was not providing enough of a challenge, so that Defender Diversity was making the decisions on who won, and not acting as the tie breaker.

As we said, we're still looking into more revisions that may need to be made after, but this was based on your guys feedback.

Which champs benefit on Bane and Spite nodes? Oh, right, all of them.

Bane and Spite are the new Slashed Tires and Thorns

Reina

rishisai wrote: »

Are the single revives coming back??

YES PLEAAAAASEE!!!!!!!!