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

Twunt

Soooooooo @Kabam Miike - you’re saying you have not gathered feedback from the players.

Krugg

Just going to leave this right here and you will see why this whole system is stupid.

Can you guess which team won? Hint their name starts with LGN

Twunt

1. Wins are still based on Defender rating.
2. Kabam made the map more difficult with Act 5 nodes.
3. Alliances must still 100% the map and count on Defender Rating to win or lose.
4. Wins and losses are still determined by Defender Rating.
5. Nothing changed.
6. Defender kills will not be counted in order to ensure both alliances attempt 100% to win.

Is this a decent summary?

DaMunk

It would have been nice if there was a side by side comparison of the changes like last time. That way We wouldn't have to print out pages to compare them.
And of course not dying should be a part of war. Call it not fighting or whatever but it's the same thing. Jeez..

Sempaidavid

Bring back defender kill points. Then fix dexterity so it doesn’t trigger MD!
There, I fixed all your AW problems for you!

Greywarden

Totally fixes the issue we were having!

DJSergy

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.

It’s so ironic that you guys don’t want to “discourage” players, in whatever context you want to use the word.

Yet you add tougher nodes, don’t fix MD, don’t add defender kills, in other words, you don’t listen to your players and by doing so continue to discourage us. And I mean discourage from playing the game at all.

How discouraging you think it will be to fight a mystic champ with max MD on a spite node? Knowing that the AW already decided before it even begins? Smh... you guys just don’t get it. Just care about the money grab. Terrible business model not to put your customers fitst.

Lots of players taking a break from game because of this nonesense and more are going to. Good luck

Igu4n4

Heyyy... these wars changes look like fun I cant wait to get in....

... said no one playing the game anymore ...

-ig.

Klaywiki

This "fix" isn't listening to the players as a whole. You might be listening to a few players but no way this reflects the whole or anywhere near it. That is evident by the backlash you will see again as your "fix" does the following...

A. Encourages more spending by those who can't complete without it. Gotta line those Kabam pockets some more.
B. A Few Alliances won't complete because they either don't have the skill to keep up or they don't want to line your pockets anymore for a win.
C. Most of the upper tiers of Alliance wars will still be decided by the Diversity/Defender Ratings that they are now.

**Earlier you basically asked us to give it a whirl and see what we think without judging first. The problem is we already know what we think because we gave the last 2 "fixes" a whirl and the result is the same and this is just a re-hash of the other "fixes".

Xstasis

Why not just bring back defender kills?!

Xstasis

No defender kills + harder nodes= kabam wants you to spend to win.
It's that simple.

MsDomino

Unbelievable.

You claim this is as a result of feedback when the overwhelming feedback has been that defender kills are an essential part of a fair war?

Everyone can see this is nothing more than a blatant unit grab for overpriced potions and revives.

Gamer

Danm. This node is just stupid. Think twic now we nofing Can du with Magik and this node Becasse ther always reg omg. It the defender kils

Xstasis

By " summoner feedback" I'm sure they meant their "bottom line and top brass feedback"

Maximus_Spankerson

Act 5 buffs were not designed for champs with masteries -- especially MD.. Good luck taking down R4 MD5 juggs on Bane.. or Flare..

JDogLoves46

How do you guys just not get it???? Without a penalty for deaths there is simply no skill or motivation to play AW. The game is decided at matchmaking. The higher rated alliance wins. Plain and simple. If I’m wrong in this give us the stats that prove that AW season 2 has similar numbers of wins from the lower rated alliance in the match up as season 1 did. You’ll never see a lower rated alliance beat a hIgher rated one now. Because there is no skill in strategically placing defence and in skillful fighting to minimise deaths.

AW is a total joke now. It so broken it’s unreal. And forget this, give it a go for a couple of weeks BS. WE ARE NOT YOUR BETA TESTERS!!!! And what the community is telling you you are not listening to. The community is pretty much in agreement where the problem is, but for some reason you are not listening, why?

ljain

The one and the most important feedback that every single player gave was to bring back defender kills. Instead of that you brought these absurd money grabbing changes and on top of that you are saying that they are based on feedback. Unbelievable. Just can't believe how ignorant you guys are and how stupid you think we are. Your company needs money i agree but at least be honest. Please.

Jackie2Cokes

Funny how you Muppets are putting out deal after deal the last week just before you release this POS.

For shame.

CooKak

Maximus_Spankerson wrote: »

Act 5 buffs were not designed for champs with masteries -- especially MD.. Good luck taking down R4 MD5 juggs on Bane.. or Flare..

exactly

Donyb

Feedback: get rid of defender rating

FAL7EN

Good job Kabam team! Keep up the good work!!

080808

Kabam Miike wrote: »

This is why we're bringing more difficulty back to Alliance Wars maps. The double 100% should not be a common thing. It's meant to be a rarity, and in that case is where Defender Diversity come in.

This is what was said last time wars were updated LOL.

R4GE

What I find odd is that both times a change was made we were told they were aware more changes would be needed until it was correct and would continue to monitor AW. So, that would make us the beta testers and ultimately makes it a bit odd that our feedback is being ignored.

Also, if you have known both times you made changes that it was flawed than why not simply revert back to AW 1.0 while you continued to perfect a better war system?

Greywarden

Curious what the metric is that everything is being based on. If it's the amount of groups that 100% a map then this change will undoubtedly get them to their goal and make their reports seems as if they've fixed the issue.

DNA3000

Kabam Miike wrote: »

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.

I was afraid of this.

I made the case before, so I won't repost a super-long analysis, but short version defender diversity creates two classes of defender, and very little in between. "Show-stopper" defenders are worth placing as many copies as possible, because they can stop a path dead. In the current version of AW, the only nodes where such defenders exists are really the boss nodes. No other node is really strong enough to say that any defender can hope to stop an opposing alliance dead in its tracks. All other defenders are rubbish: placeholders to fill the map and earn diversity and rating points.

This new map doesn't change that situation at all, except it might, maybe, create new nodes that a show-stopper could be placed on. I don't see the point. We don't want "informed" decisions per se, we want strategically interesting decisions. Decisions where there is no obvious binary right or wrong. There are pros and cons to placing this, and there are pros and cons to placing that. And two different alliances could come to different decisions.

Pumping up the nodes isn't likely to do that. It will just create a new optimal solution for every node. And maybe, if you buffed the nodes high enough, that new optimal solution will mandate placing duplicates. But not likely at high tiers.

So lower tier alliances are going to start to see multiple Magiks and Dormammus again because the nodes are buffed high enough to make placing them worthwhile, while higher tier alliances won't see that because they are skilled enough to overcome the node buffs and both sides will still place maximal diversity defenses. I've made the case many times before why this is literally mathematically guaranteed to fail, at least to fail to produce the kinds of results I think most players with problems with the current version of AW want. But while this might be getting "closer" to what Kabam wants, it is apparently heading in the complete opposite direction of what I've been advocating for.

Tasty_Yum_Yums

Defender rating should be removed. The fact you face 5* after 5* is challenging enough. Why have a “tie breaker” be based on a non-skill factor?

AW should be challenging, but not overkill. Highly recommend you bring back kill count. One addition I also suggest is the tie breaker being the least amount of resources used during AW match.

Xstasis

FAL7EN wrote: »

Good job Kabam team! Keep up the good work!!

Ooh the trolls are out!

NinjaWarrior99

you forgot to add points for defender kills which is what the majority want!

DaMunk

How many iterations of war do we have to suffer through? Not saying this won't work, doubtful, but this trial by fire is killing war. People are constantly ranking up champs trying to hit a moving target to be successful in the game. Without a doubt this causes frustration. If this new war system doesn't work you should just go back to the old system and add defender diversity and call it a day. Who wants to relearn war every few week while spending hours looking at spreadsheets for each new iteration.

Aslw

Cmon nodebuff over nodebuff. Do what the Community want and get Defkills back......no way...... Give us at least 10 Rankdown tickets, so we are able to rank up the new crapdefens