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15.0 Alliance Wars Update Discussion Thread
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Since it is named Alliance Wars, I'll say this. A "war" is exactly what you mention it shouldn't be. Consider the following example if you will.
Some country declares war on the US. The US deploys carriers, battle ships, and set perimeters on strategic regions around the globe to safeguard our people and way of life.....the US does not make the firsr offensive maneuver.
They merely show their hand as if to warn, "go ahead and try if you must but as you can clearly see, you will be dealt with swiftly and violently". The more troops and war vessels that perish adds more loss to the agresssor, not "if we lose a million men but sink their carrier we win".
If the agressor is a much smaller country not as heavily equipped, yet vastly superior in training of troops and military strategy, it could be possible that they could inflict more damage than they incur, which would give them a viable window for victory.
In case anyone missed it, the key phrase would be, "inflict more damage than incur".
its hard enough the problem is defensive kills!!!!!!!!!
How are (3) and (4) variations of (1)? They aren't remotely similar.
(i) placing 150 champs;
(ii) having a perfect diversity score;
(iii) killing all 3 bosses;
(iv) killing all defenders (i.e., perfect attacker kill score); and
(v) exploring each bg 100%
If each alliance in AW does the above, the tie breaker is "defender rating," which basically translates into bigger alliance (by rating) wins, smaller alliance (by rating) loses. Admittedly, that's an over simplification, but it also holds a lot of truth.
Now, why is that more problematic than, let's say, using defender kills (or some other metric)? Because even if the scores are blind, alliances have a good sense of who has the better defender rating at the start of the war, meaning that alliances know that the war is fruitless before it even begins.
Here are a few examples:
Example 1: The Suicide Problem
Let's say two equally matched alliances face each other, but one (let's call them Loving Life) doesn't run suicides, and the other (let's call them Suicide Squad) does run suicides. Either by dueling the alliance or from an initial fight, Loving Life will know right away that there is now a big disparity in PI because Loving Life doesn't run suicides and Suicide Squad does. This also means that Loving Life knows it will lose, even if Loving Life's defense produces 3 times the amount of kills than Suicide Squad, so long as Suicide Squad 100% the maps. In other words, the defender rating system immediately let's Loving Life know that it shouldn't put much effort into winning the AW if it looks like Suicide Squad can complete the maps.
Example 2: David v. Goliath.
Let's say that one, highly skilled alliance (let's call it David) faces another skilled alliance with many more 4/55 champs (let's call it Goliath). In looking at the disparity in champs to start the AW, David will immediately know that Goliath should have a much higher defender rating than David. That, too, means that David knows that, as long as Goliath 100%'s the map, then David will lose, even if David's skills mean it completed the map with far fewer deaths than Goliath.
To solve the above issue, the latest update tries to enhance the difficulty of some nodes so that alliances can't 100% the maps. This "solution" merely doubles-down on the problem created by the new scoring system and runs directly contrary to the initial rationale given for the elimination of defender kills.
First, the new solution does not actually solve the problem of what happens when both alliances 100% the map, which means that both alliances will have a good sense of when an AW is pointless and when it is not.
Second, enhancing the difficulty of the nodes merely means that an alliance with a superior defender rating knows it may have to use some resources to win the AW. Enhanced nodes do not in any way prevent an alliance from completing a map if that is the alliance's desire.
Third, the enhanced node system does not reward an alliance for strategy so long as an alliance gets through the node and completes the map.
Finally, and most importantly, the enhanced node system runs directly contrary to what we were told about why defender kills were eliminated and actually magnifies the supposed problem created by defender kills. In the initial update to AW, we were told "The goal of this change was to encourage Summoners to continue their assault on the opposing Alliance, without having to worry about giving them more points, and to avoid that feeling of defeat after only trying one fight and being beaten." Under the new system, any smart alliance will know it is defeated even before the AW attack truly gets going, meaning that a smart alliance will NOT be encouraged to continue its assault on the opposing Alliance and will feel defeated well-before AW ends. Or, if for some reason the ratings seem so close it is hard to tell, each alliance will know it is a **** shoot as to whether it wins or loses and make a decision based upon that. No matter what the circumstance, however, the notion of skill and strategy to win AW feels like it has gone out the window.
AW was a brilliant addition to the game. It is now dying a very slow death (and is causing players to re-think playing this game). I strongly urge you to save it, revamp AW, and reward skill and strategy by fixing the scoring system. Some ways you might accomplish this are:
1) Reward defender kills (similar to the old system);
2) Award more points for beating a node without suffering a death than if you do. E.g., you beat node 44 without dying, you get 75 points, but, if you die, you only get 50. Or it could even be a sliding scale. Boss kills have a total of 20,000 points, but you lose 50 points off of the max total each time you die. So, a good boss gets 20 kills, the alliance who beat the boss only gets 19,000 points.
3) Award points based on items used. The fewer items used, the more points you get. You could of course do the reverse, i.e., more points for using items, but that seems contrary to the notion of rewarding any skill involved in the game.
The bottom line is that AW desperately needs you to fix the scoring system so that it rewards skill and strategy. Please do so.
Thanks,
yerp.... more profitable and LESS FUN.
if Kabam doesn't add skill back to Alliance War (via Defender Kill Points or some other way points for skill) by the end of the year, then I'm out ... along with my thousands of dollars.
Lemme guess the response this would get if they cared to respond:
blah blah blah, this is a live game ::insert lip service::: blahblahblah, revisions and balance...blahblahblah
Just like 12.0, I wouldn't believe a thing they say.
You guys must be high. You "updated" the nodes recently to the point that you need a flawless fight to make it through. One slip up and your offensive character is dead in under 5 hits. Couple this with the fact that your AW and AQ gameplay is still severely broken(parry, inputs for dodge/dash not registering, AI coming out of combos to attack with no break in action) and you have the makings of a completely garbage piece of content. Now adding to the difficulty of the nodes to "address player worries about diversity" is just another chance for you folks to ramp up the difficulty and necessity for items while hiding it behind some excuse. Go look at all the war histories. We have a loss in which we racked up 250+ defender kills, while keeping our deaths under 80, which did nothing for our alliance and we ended up losing anyways. That is called a broken scoring system. You are not fooling anyone with these excuses that you are listening to player feedback. Everything you have done since the alliance wars updates has made it worse.
Just do what we are trying to tell you would be in your best intrest
Why?
Defender Diversity - creates a need for resources that wasn't there before. People had no desire on ranking up the lower tier champs and now they are being forced to. Lots of sales will be thrown out to us for T4 and other ranking resources.
Defender Kills - removed because it "prevented people from fighting". If they're not fighting, they don't need potions. If they don't need potions, they're not spending units/cash. So removing defender kills was for no other reason than to encourage spending. Nothing more.
I really think we're spinning our wheels on this one. I just don't see defender kills coming back for this very reason.
Defender Rating - Encourage people to spend on increasing prestige/rating. Buying boosts? Keep buying them please. Need that high prestige champ that would also fit very nicely with Defender Diversity since nobody else has them yet? How about these fancy (and reasonably priced) featured Grandmaster Crystals! Buy them in bulk with an Odin!
Harder nodes without Defender Kills - Well they removed any hindrance to throwing in the towel, so why not? Buy as many potions as you'd like. Anyone else see an increase in the # of potions that can be used per war in our future?
They are creating their own economy of supply and demand.
I mean really this is pretty obvious what they're doing and why they're doing it. I for one have given up with this thread. They aren't listening and have no intention on listening.
@Kabam Miike will keep attempting damage control with cryptic responses that have very little meaning until everyone bends over and takes it. Because ya know....this is EXACTLY what everyone wanted.
Interesting theory. Just out of curiosity, how much has your spending increased since the 15.0 AW changes?
Probably not much. IMO, it's pretty clear that they're continued buff to the nodes is Kabam's plan to remedy that. Pretty much everythign they do is to earn a quick buck from everything the youtubers reported from NYCC. Who cares if the game dies in a few years when they can earn some money now?
That's why I specified that the idea of Time peaked my interest, but I'd have to understand more about the cumulative aspect because if it's carrying over, and no doubt will be governed by Suicides, then that's the same as penalizing those that need to Revive. Not a fully formed disagreeance, just a questionable one for me. Number 4 is both instances of what I'm not for. It brings Defender Kills back in a way that counts after the use of Items.
How are (3) and (4) variations of (1)? They aren't remotely similar.
Everyone working on the game, I would imagine.
My spending has shut down completely pretty much.
Never said it was a good idea or that it was working.
I just can't think of any other reason why they would ignore what feedback they've gotten and keep trucking in their own direction without any communication on where they're going with a believable reason why.
Ockham's Razor I suppose.
I just responded to this.
Im guessing he also means Item Use alongside spending. The change of 0 points for defender kills will likely increase Item Use since alliances want to explore 100% and bring down all 3 bosses to try and win.
Correct. I see them as somewhat the same thing since as item use increases, so will the need to replace the items used.
How many potions are higher level alliances getting from AQ crystals/milestones these days? How many people are willing to use Glory for potions instead of something with ranking value?
It would actually make the wars competitive instead of all this diversity and defender rating nonsense
Not really. Which is why I repeated my question. Exactly none of what you said responds to this question.
I'm asking because at the moment I don't, and I'm unaware of anyone that has significantly increased spending in AW over the 14.0 version that was much harder than it is now.