I don’t know how similar my experience is to other players, but in a good tier 1 war with no deaths I’ll be using around 5 of those t4 health potions, a couple of grey boosts and a few class specific boost. Loyalty cost 130k. A victory will give me back 54k. Im not a statistical expert but the maths don’t add up. It isn’t sustainable and will force me to step down to lower tier wars. I dare not think what will happen if I have a bad war and die. Could be season over. The stress levels will be through the roof.
They arent fixing it. They just added the mid season update for Alliance quest and included the same potion design in the notes. This company is the most fraudulent company out there. Absolute joke
They are in fact working on what I would describe as substantive changes to the potion system. However, in my opinion they rushed the first announcement without properly vetting it, and it contained huge errors in data and design as a result. I don't think they want to make the same mistake twice, and are being extra cautious before releasing any information about the changes being contemplated and reviewed.
Well from the information that we have heard Kabam 100% wants to keep the potions limited to 7 purchased per week with loyalty. No cap on unit purchases of course. Also the loyalty price won't change but there will be an increase in loyalty given for a win. However, do not expect the increase to be substantial.
I’ve heard something different.
What have you heard? Because my information comes from a pretty reliable source.
My information comes from direct knowledge of what the changes will be. I suspect your reliable source is leaking intermittent random information from a very extensive and complex discussion.
The reason why this stuff takes as long as it does is because it isn't enough to just say the devs are wrong. You have to figure out why they are wrong, how they arrived at the wrong numbers, because you can't just tell them two is wrong, it should be eight, and then they can just pencil eight in there. There has to be a system, a logic that generates the eight. You have to hash out which guiding principles led the devs to two, and what we have to replace them with that will lead them to an eight. And there were several principles built into the original announcement that needed to be isolated, discussed, and replaced by general agreement.
This takes time, this takes a lot of work, and this is easy to mischaracterize from the outside. Personally, I'm a chatter box. If it was up to me, I would be posting regular updates on the process itself. But that's not for me to do. Absent that, I can say that the people on the outside saying how easy it should be to just "change the numbers" with a snap of the fingers and "fix" the system simply have no understanding of how any of this works, or how much effort the players with direct feedback channels are expending to try to work with the devs to improve things. That's not Kabam being intransigent, that's just the reality of development. You have to make a logical case, backed up with strong evidence, and build consensus to change things, because every game change, even the horrible ones, were also generated from the same foundation. If that foundation is flawed, it is not enough to point out its flaws. You have to replace it with something better.
In any case, everyone will be able to judge for themselves soon enough.
So they announced the "fix" and it does sound alot like what I explained. Loyalty increase of 54k per win, a limit of 5 you can purchase...oh but they did give us a 1 day timer for the reset...God bless, with all that loyalty they are giving out per win the 1 day timer is sooo clutch
Well from the information that we have heard Kabam 100% wants to keep the potions limited to 7 purchased per week with loyalty. No cap on unit purchases of course. Also the loyalty price won't change but there will be an increase in loyalty given for a win. However, do not expect the increase to be substantial.
1. Potions are not limited to seven per week. They are limited to forty per day on a sliding cost scale. Even if we only count the largest solo and team potions as the most efficient ones, and even if we only count the initial two that start with lower stepped costs, that's still four per day or twenty eight per week, which in no universe rounds to about seven.
2. Loyalty increase was substantial. Unless you could increasing total loyalty earned by a factor of three on average to be not substantial. On top of that, loyalty isn't just increased for wins, it also increases for losses which means alliances do not need to win at a high percentage to benefit from the loyalty gains. Above Normal difficulty the loyalty earned from losses is about twice as high as it used to be for wins. I would consider that substantial.
If what you described and what was announced sounds similar to you, I'm not sure what would sound different. A billion loyalty per war and a fifty potion limit per minute?
Again if you don’t win you start to losing alot so the system how flaw stop defending Kabam now I’m tierd of it I’m pretty sure you in CCP but don’t said this is golden because it ain’t I’m ready to leave the game again can’t hav faith in Kabam.
Whether someone likes the updated system depends on a lot of factors. The shift away from glory is going to help a lot of players who can now hold onto more glory, provided they can keep up with loyalty. Low to intermediate potion users are likely to come out ahead. High potion users are likely to be more constrained with this system. That's something I think should be further tackled, but specific numbers would be helpful.
The argument I've made is that balancing around averages is fraught with problems, specifically because potion use ranges across a very wide range of different situations. But how many people are in those situations, and what they are specifically doing to try to manage those situations is not something datamining can really fully articulate. If players want to see further changes to the system, the best thing to do would be to be specific. What were you doing before, specifically. What do you think you'll have to do now, specifically. What's the gap between the two.
"This sucks because its pay to win and impossible to do war and too expensive" might be true, but it is also not going to change anything without specifics. The changes incorporate a lot of specific situations. If you want yours to be heard, you have to make the case specifically.
I think a lot of the fault lies with they more than likely used average potion usage across all or at the very least multiple tiers to come up with this number.
Obviously lower tiers not taking war as seriously are going to have significantly lower potion useage than the higher competitive tiers. I think balancing these prices/limits using those numbers is massively flawed personally. Balance things around the competitive tiers and then that base can at least sustain itself and if the lower tiers have access to more resources than they typically use, I fail to see the harm. Heaven forbid you actually incentivize players to play your game. We've had some of the most competitive war seasons ever recently with multiple lower spending alliances taking top spots (GT40 1st 3 seasons in a row).
I'm just not sure where the win for Kabam lies in driving out a significant portion of the players that have embraced a game mode that has been stale and stagnant for ages.
I think a lot of the fault lies with they more than likely used average potion usage across all or at the very least multiple tiers to come up with this number.
Actually, it is a more subtle problem. When you balance around the averages, that means of course the people above average will do better and the people below average will do worse.
No matter what tier you're in, whether you are in tier 1 or tier 10, I'm sure most alliances have players above and below average for that tier. Alliances are extremely difficult things to hold together under the best of circumstances, and the more pressure you place on them, the more likely it is they will be forced to become more homogenous.
I don't think Kabam fully appreciates this, although this is something I have been fighting for mindshare on extensively. But both among players and developers, there is a sense that if you're in over your head, you should maybe drop down in difficulty - the players tell other players that when it comes to single player content, and the devs tell players that when it comes to alliance content like AQ.
But in my opinion, this ignores the fact that single players can pick any difficulty they want. If you pick difficulty too hard for you, that's on you. But alliances have to pick difficulty for whole alliances. There's some flexibility in AQ (you can set different maps for different groups) but none for Alliance War. The difficulty you get is based on your rating: you have no agency at all. So while the best player in the alliance can simply choose to run a lower map to continue to play with their friends, the strongest players in an alliance can push the weaker ones into super expensive wars just by winning too many fights.
Quitting your alliance is an option. I just think its a stupid option to force on the players. But balancing purely around averages basically says players should quit alliances when they are the weakest link. And there's almost always a weakest link.
I wish there was a way to systematically address this. We can't balance directly around the highest potions users, because if we do that what's the point of even having a potion economy - everyone will be overflowing with potions except for the absolute highest potion users, who would still have all they want. The expansion of potion limits with escalating costs similar to the way the glory store works was an attempt to provide a safety net cushion to mitigate this, but I don't know if it really goes far enough (a lot of people think it doesn't). I think a lot more needs to be done there. I have a couple ideas, for example allowing alliance officers to "shift" potions away from players who don't need them and towards those that do, but they are somewhat sketchy at the moment.
“That's not the question we set out to answer. The question was "How many Glory Potions did Summoners use on a regular basis". That is what we based our calculations on. People were not regularly fully healing their Champions with potions they got from the Glory store” - Kabam Miike
First of all, thank you for listening to us about increasing purchase limits and reducing reset timers. They are almost in line with how we used to purchase AW related items on the glory store. This was the one of or the only significant improvement since the announcement last week.
Now onto the pressing stuff. Many on this thread have highlighted various points and evidences that the prices of potions are simply ridiculous.
I think what the player base DESERVES to know at this point, is how the game team plans on boosting loyalty avenues apart from win/losses. Would it be the case of completing simple side events to accrue loyalty, or would it be through rewards within the War solo event or is it another case of grinding/spending for loyalty.
And what would the amounts be like? Meagre pittance amounts that barely cover a potion or just enough to cover the ACTUAL average costs for war which includes BOOSTS at the COMPETITIVE LEVEL.
It’s been often quoted by the mod responding to this thread that things said by players aren’t true as per your “calculations and data”. Please, walk us through your data and maths and show us how the game team concluded that their numbers are right and we are wrong. If your data is also based on future avenues for loyalty, then it’s the game team’s fault for not conveying this clearly and that it’s even more imperative to fill us in on the future plans.
Also, let’s not forget that your “data” in the first announcement is what’s continuing us into this massive debate a week on later….
And the last question I’d like to pose is, does your “data” pre compensation also account for loyalty purchases for boosts? We are playing AW by your design for years now and boosts are an integral part of AW. I don’t see how your “data” accounts for loyalty boosts alongside with your pricey potions with the given and known updates on upsized loyalty accruals.
Everything up till this point just screams to me that you guys don’t play your own game enough to sympathise with the sentiments of the player base now and I’m refraining myself from confirming that and hoping that something pro-player comes out of this.
@Kabam Miike the changes might be good if the potions were scaled to R4 champs. We've been using free (actually useful) potions during the transition to R4s. Going back to L4 AW potions is going to be painful.
I am sorry to say that but what you (Kabam) are doing to the Alliance War game is a mess. The majority of players will stop playing this mode. It was so stressfull the last 4/5 season, and now you got it to a new lvl that i cannot even imagine what its going to be
Please do again the maths, because its not working.
Some players are still supporting these changes under the name of stats and numbers while ignoring the logic and practicality.
Let me give you simple example and situation. SOP influenced the number of r3s in game. Then we had Different deals. Some other easy events. Then we had 7.4. With the more availability of t5cc have increased the number of rank 3 champs players holding. R4 champs have come to the game. I have seen people with 700k rating with multiple r3s. So naturally we will see r3s even in mid tier wars like gold alliances in defense. Alliances like p4 and above always have 95%of their defenders at r3s. And even we are seeing the r4s in defense. Alliance wars have high hp pool in general than pre comp.
Now let's come to its next part. Let's say a player like me who is in t2/t3 war takes path 9 have lot to worry. With new ranks , defender have more attack values. Even block damage (counting whole path) will be enough to use 1 or 2 pots to get full hp. So under new system,there goes my weekly earned loyalty (assuming we won 2 and lost 1 war). There are possibilities player might die once or Twice during whole week. Now most of players are shifting to r3 attackers tooo above p4. So again here goes some more pots. Now question arise that even with very minimal mistake, will that player have sustainable means to keep up in war Potion-wise other than units fir whole season??!
Even if alliance wins all 3 wars weekly, there will be no sustainable means other than money if a member using 4 pots averagely per week( I don't know if in reality 4 will be enough for whole week). T4 pots are expensive and player tend to use them more cuz of item use limit pressure. Beside Most of the best rewards even after buff are after p1 and above. P4/p3/p2 ally fight in very tight competition to reach p1. Realistically that would consume more than items. It exhaust some players like officers and leaders mentally. So after this changes it will be enough to kill the mood of mild spenders and f2ps. They will simply not see any worth before p1. As of speaking now my few old alliances and friends already have decided to go Aq focus once comp item gets over. Now I can't even imagine the situation in t1 wars as I am only playing t2/t3 wars. Aw gonna be costly at there as @Agent_X_zzz mentioned as they are the defending champs of Aw from last 2 or 3 seasons.
Those said calculation in reality are based upon the Aw meta where r3 were not that common and new tactics and system were not introduced. Don't forget that as new champs arriving with their god like essay long skill descriptions, Defense is getting more complex plus with unavoidable damage from certain champs will chip some hp resulting in more item use in aw. Loyalty is also good source of running Aq (map 7 & 8). So not majorly but surely will impact to certain degree the alliances who run high tier war and Aq together.
They say players only averaged 1-2 pots per war pre-gamewide issues, maybe Gold 2 and lower which, sure is a lot of Allys/Players. But anyone who is Gold 1 or higher and is in the truly competitive top 1500 alliances knows that you are fully healing/boosting before every fight as the damage ramps from the nodes. Going into a fight at 50% vs 90% can mean death on any tier 5 or higher map, especially on nodes/tactics like high ground where there is inescapable damage.
This really feels like Kabam saying " Pay me" to the top competitive alliances which is filled with high skilled and end game players. Now we cant possibly afford War boosts because all of our Loyalty is going to healing and there is no other way to buy in game heals/war boosts that wont cost units(Real Money). This takes the only competitive non whale game mode and spits in its face. This is really a knife in the back to players who spent years building their rosters for war, signed up for kabam forums, built communities around this game and stuck around for almost a year while this game was near unplayable for long chunks of it.
War the last 2 seasons was as fun as it ever was and literally no one in the community asked for/was expecting this. If anything we wanted improvements but if you had asked the community 3 weeks ago if this would help not a single person would say this is a good idea. Please fix this or your gonna lose a lot of players who spend 500 to 1000$+ a year on this game.
What is so surprising is the numbers they used were before the compensation started, which was the START of proliferation of r3s in war. Who is incharge of these delusional decisions? now exclusively r3s are used in war, with r4s as well. 9.5 heals NOTHING. Upon that, you have delayed the start of these potions to AFTER war season start, so we are starting with ZERO potions. Incompetence at its finest, what a joke of a change. To think i actually had hope in this announcement. You guys just killed the flourishing war scene.
We did not ignore the inflation of HP from Rank 3 to Rank 4, and included those in our calculations. We based it on the average number of potions used, then inflated for the change.
So tell me Miike, r4 apoc, unboosted, is 52k health. boosted, 70-80k health. The potions you guys are offering us, heal 9.5k. One near death/death bankrupts us now? healing him also equates to 3 wins in war. What sort of calculations/justifications has the team done?
That's not the question we set out to answer. The question was "How many Glory Potions did Summoners use on a regular basis". That is what we based our calculations on. People were not regularly fully healing their Champions with potions they got from the Glory store.
this all stuff about calculations makes no sense. First of all, the period of time when 6s r4 became largely available is the period of time during which our alliance war potions were available through weekly compensations. In your calculations in the last 3-4 seasons I guess we never used glory potions... guess what: we had bigger potions for free, that's why! If we don't get the weekly compensations anymore, then we need to use bought pots. Bought for glory, for loyalty, whatever the currency... but of course the calculations shift because we need to use pots that we buy from the store. I think the way to go about this is to consider how many pots we used no matter which kind. Say on average one uses 7-8 pots per war, then that's how much one should be able to afford (per war). It's nonsensical to analyze how many glory pots we used when we used no glory pots at all
As mentioned in the thread a few times and in the initial post, we based this on pre-compensation potion useage but adjusted for the increase in health from Rank 3 to Rank 4 Champions.
Ok so you've adjusted for the r3 increase in war, poorly so in my eyes.
BUT
How can you base the calculations on data from prior to these input issues? its illogical at best, these issues have been around for now approx 9/10 months, AW has changed in more ways than one in that space of time ..... new nodes on paths (for the most part they're more challenging, not stupidly so but still more), Attacker tactics have been introduced and changed, Defense tactics have changed more than once then there is the introduction of the attacker bans, your calculations are based on outdated data. You've said that the time since the issues while the compo has been flowing weekly is not included in your calculation when it absolutely should be! If I'm using (on average) 2 of the compo potions every war then that should be taken in account, a potion used is a potion used regardless of compensation, it just means that - if anything - id of used 2 or 3 more potions per war if it wasn't for the compensation.
This will be last season playing at tier 4 if these changes stick. Shame really as I do enjoy that game mode.
Personally I think they should scrap the whole potion buying completely and just give an allowance each war that’s even to all in the tier. Then it’s purely skill based and one bad war doesn’t screw your season.
The core problem with these calculations is that you take your averages across all alliances.
I have an account in an alliance running Maps 234, they actively participate in AW and not a single person uses potions because it’s not worth it. I have been in alliances in virtually every tier of war and the only alliances who actively use potions are those who push in war and that’s maybe 10% at the very most and all of those are found in P3 and above. Of those pushing in P3 most are small alliances, the big alliances in the P4-3 bracket don’t need to use items because they’ve got the right balance of effort/reward for their rosters and ability.
The only barometer for item use that should have been taken is T2-1 alliances because these are the ones who are actively pushing in every single war, who’ll even consider using items off season for testing purposes and if these people who are being truly screwed here.
I guarantee if you recalculate these figures only using T1 alliances your numbers will be an order of magnitude out. Please, please sort this out. Your worst case scenario is that you end up giving lower alliances too much loyalty and they’re able to push beyond their skill level if they really want to and I just don’t see the problem with encouraging active participation in a game mode which makes up 50% of alliance participation. Many of the disillusioned players have stayed because they’re in tight communities and enjoying playing with friends, cutting 50% of the reason they play isn’t a wise move.
I think a lot of the fault lies with they more than likely used average potion usage across all or at the very least multiple tiers to come up with this number.
Actually, it is a more subtle problem. When you balance around the averages, that means of course the people above average will do better and the people below average will do worse.
No matter what tier you're in, whether you are in tier 1 or tier 10, I'm sure most alliances have players above and below average for that tier. Alliances are extremely difficult things to hold together under the best of circumstances, and the more pressure you place on them, the more likely it is they will be forced to become more homogenous.
I don't think Kabam fully appreciates this, although this is something I have been fighting for mindshare on extensively. But both among players and developers, there is a sense that if you're in over your head, you should maybe drop down in difficulty - the players tell other players that when it comes to single player content, and the devs tell players that when it comes to alliance content like AQ.
But in my opinion, this ignores the fact that single players can pick any difficulty they want. If you pick difficulty too hard for you, that's on you. But alliances have to pick difficulty for whole alliances. There's some flexibility in AQ (you can set different maps for different groups) but none for Alliance War. The difficulty you get is based on your rating: you have no agency at all. So while the best player in the alliance can simply choose to run a lower map to continue to play with their friends, the strongest players in an alliance can push the weaker ones into super expensive wars just by winning too many fights.
Quitting your alliance is an option. I just think its a stupid option to force on the players. But balancing purely around averages basically says players should quit alliances when they are the weakest link. And there's almost always a weakest link.
I wish there was a way to systematically address this. We can't balance directly around the highest potions users, because if we do that what's the point of even having a potion economy - everyone will be overflowing with potions except for the absolute highest potion users, who would still have all they want. The expansion of potion limits with escalating costs similar to the way the glory store works was an attempt to provide a safety net cushion to mitigate this, but I don't know if it really goes far enough (a lot of people think it doesn't). I think a lot more needs to be done there. I have a couple ideas, for example allowing alliance officers to "shift" potions away from players who don't need them and towards those that do, but they are somewhat sketchy at the moment.
I don't think you need to balance it to the highest potion users specifically but I do think balancing for the highest tiers would be far more tenable. As you said you will obviously have huge variance within alliances just based on things like skill level and fight count. If you average things out based on the most competitive tiers at least though I feel we'd at least be much closer to a sustainable situation which I do not feel we are anywhere near currently.
---One more thing--- This is a direct quote from the alliance war potion update post: "One of our goals with these changes was to better differentiate how resources are tied to different Alliance modes. Glory is an Alliance Quest resource, while Loyalty is tied to Alliance Wars."
By this logic, shouldn't loyalty no longer be tied to purchasing AQ tickets? As the current AQ ticket system encourages splitting ticket purchase between multiple resources, its another source of loyalty drain, was that factored in as well?
Don't know if anyone have the same issue, but there is a glitch or error that I didn't get the shards from openning the Max Signiture Crystal. Have contacted Kabam but still cannot get the shards back as they said I have been reward correctly
Don't know if anyone have the same issue, but there is a glitch or error that I didn't get the shards from openning the Max Signiture Crystal. Have contacted Kabam but still cannot get the shards back as they said I have been reward correctly
Why are you posting this on a AW changes thread tho?
Step 1: Add Lvl5 Health Potion (14k Health). Reason: Higher Health Pool. We need those potions.
Step 2: Add Loyalty<->Health fixed exchange rate: 1k Health costs 1k Loyalty. But the maths below will show you that it's still bad and we need to set it like: 1k Health = 500 Loyalty. Example: 6k Potion costs 6k Loylty 9.5k Potion costs 9500 Loyalty 14k Potion costs 14k Loyalty Reason: We need variability too, we don't wand use 14k potions to heal 3k Health.
Step 3: Increase the minimum Loyalty Per War for Loss. Significantly. Reason: (Can not believe You still don't understand it) Because if Alliance lost a war then players can buy only ONE 14k Potion (add it 'cause we need it!). But the loss isn't the fact that you didn't use anything, you can use 15 items per war and lose it. And then get Loyalty to but only 1 Potion? BS.
Step 4: Increase the loyalty per war for Win +50% from Loss amount of Loyalty. Not x2, +50% is enough. Why? Who lost the war - they still was trying to win, they need Loyalty too. How much? I think: 40k Loyalty per Loss and 60k Loyalty for winners, I think it's fare enough. But it's THE MINIMUM. If you will add less then that - Players will not be happy. Trust me.
Easy Maths: Rank1 Master vs. Rank2 Master. First has 12-0, Second - 11-1. 12-0 has 12*60k Loyalty + 28k = 748k Loyalty. 11-1 has 11*60k + 40k + 28k = 728k Loyalty. 10-2 has 11*60k + 40k + 28k = 708k Loyalty. etc.
With prices above - 748k Loyalty gives Player 53 14k Health Potions. 53 Potions Per Season. It meants that it's only 4 potions PER WAR!!! I used 4 14k Potions after 1 fight sometimes.
I Play in Tier 1 AW and I know what I'm talking about. And the Maths above shows the problem: You still ain't good enough when doing something for players. And it's not the only my position. It's still the fact that the maths above proofs and shows that even if You will do like I said here - Players still will be having to forget about Unstoppabe Colossus, about Class Boosts and etc.
So, 1k Health = 500 Loyalty is probably the answer. And add 14k potions in the loyalty Store. It's 2022 and we can not use 6-9.5k health potions anymore. That's the fact too. Hope you will read this and get that it's how changes should be like.
There is no way the calculations are reflective of anything from Tier5 upwards. Kabam must have taken the average across all alliances including dysfunctional low tier alliances that really skew the data (with their data taken pre compensation package time).
I understand all alliances will be in the same boat (except for heavy spending ones), but please I urge you as a big fan of AW to reconsider your calculations (or motives, if monetization is the reason behind this). The feeling of dying in a AW fight to then spend 600 units to heal up is just rubbing salt into the wound, as is any move to push away from map exploration.
The AW game mode generates a lot of interest from the skilled, low to moderate spending community. In my opinion, a lot of interest in game will be lost if this is the approach going forward.
It would be nice considering how vital this is to the majority, for someone at Kabam to sort this during the weekend. Shows how much they really value us as players. They won’t respond to anything til Monday at least. They don’t work weekends. It will be too late then .
If something has been proven to extend the lifespan of this game is Alliance. I'd think most of the player will agree that they are still playing because the people and the bonds they have done with their mates.
This measure is going impact so hard on that social structure that is going force those stablished bonds to break, and will have a direct impact on veterans leaving and quiting the game.
You are not only breaking a game mode, you are breaking the foundation of your game.
There is a really simple TEMPORARY fix to this issue while Kabam sort it properly. Give every MCOC player 2/3 million loyalty to see them through the next season for boosts and potions . Such an easy temporary fix . But I don’t think the aim here was to create a better system, which is why no one has suggested something like this . The aim here is to increase cash flow from allinace war by making us have to buy potions for units . I might be wrong but no one has made me think otherwise from Kabam. Prove me wrong .
If something has been proven to extend the lifespan of this game is Alliance. I'd think most of the player will agree that they are still playing because the people and the bonds they have done with their mates.
This measure is going impact so hard on that social structure that is going force those stablished bonds to break, and will have a direct impact on veterans leaving and quiting the game.
You are not only breaking a game mode, you are breaking the foundation of your game.
I Couldn't agree more, as the leader of a P2 alliance a majority of players I recruit or have on team are War focused only. They are either sick of the AQ repition or have completed every thing in game and only stick around to do competitive war. War imo is extremely enjoyable and its going to suck to see such a fun game mode become unplayable because of cost.
Comments
The loyalty ones are 9k
Obviously lower tiers not taking war as seriously are going to have significantly lower potion useage than the higher competitive tiers. I think balancing these prices/limits using those numbers is massively flawed personally. Balance things around the competitive tiers and then that base can at least sustain itself and if the lower tiers have access to more resources than they typically use, I fail to see the harm. Heaven forbid you actually incentivize players to play your game. We've had some of the most competitive war seasons ever recently with multiple lower spending alliances taking top spots (GT40 1st 3 seasons in a row).
I'm just not sure where the win for Kabam lies in driving out a significant portion of the players that have embraced a game mode that has been stale and stagnant for ages.
No matter what tier you're in, whether you are in tier 1 or tier 10, I'm sure most alliances have players above and below average for that tier. Alliances are extremely difficult things to hold together under the best of circumstances, and the more pressure you place on them, the more likely it is they will be forced to become more homogenous.
I don't think Kabam fully appreciates this, although this is something I have been fighting for mindshare on extensively. But both among players and developers, there is a sense that if you're in over your head, you should maybe drop down in difficulty - the players tell other players that when it comes to single player content, and the devs tell players that when it comes to alliance content like AQ.
But in my opinion, this ignores the fact that single players can pick any difficulty they want. If you pick difficulty too hard for you, that's on you. But alliances have to pick difficulty for whole alliances. There's some flexibility in AQ (you can set different maps for different groups) but none for Alliance War. The difficulty you get is based on your rating: you have no agency at all. So while the best player in the alliance can simply choose to run a lower map to continue to play with their friends, the strongest players in an alliance can push the weaker ones into super expensive wars just by winning too many fights.
Quitting your alliance is an option. I just think its a stupid option to force on the players. But balancing purely around averages basically says players should quit alliances when they are the weakest link. And there's almost always a weakest link.
I wish there was a way to systematically address this. We can't balance directly around the highest potions users, because if we do that what's the point of even having a potion economy - everyone will be overflowing with potions except for the absolute highest potion users, who would still have all they want. The expansion of potion limits with escalating costs similar to the way the glory store works was an attempt to provide a safety net cushion to mitigate this, but I don't know if it really goes far enough (a lot of people think it doesn't). I think a lot more needs to be done there. I have a couple ideas, for example allowing alliance officers to "shift" potions away from players who don't need them and towards those that do, but they are somewhat sketchy at the moment.
First of all, thank you for listening to us about increasing purchase limits and reducing reset timers. They are almost in line with how we used to purchase AW related items on the glory store. This was the one of or the only significant improvement since the announcement last week.
Now onto the pressing stuff. Many on this thread have highlighted various points and evidences that the prices of potions are simply ridiculous.
I think what the player base DESERVES to know at this point, is how the game team plans on boosting loyalty avenues apart from win/losses. Would it be the case of completing simple side events to accrue loyalty, or would it be through rewards within the War solo event or is it another case of grinding/spending for loyalty.
And what would the amounts be like? Meagre pittance amounts that barely cover a potion or just enough to cover the ACTUAL average costs for war which includes BOOSTS at the COMPETITIVE LEVEL.
It’s been often quoted by the mod responding to this thread that things said by players aren’t true as per your “calculations and data”. Please, walk us through your data and maths and show us how the game team concluded that their numbers are right and we are wrong. If your data is also based on future avenues for loyalty, then it’s the game team’s fault for not conveying this clearly and that it’s even more imperative to fill us in on the future plans.
Also, let’s not forget that your “data” in the first announcement is what’s continuing us into this massive debate a week on later….
And the last question I’d like to pose is, does your “data” pre compensation also account for loyalty purchases for boosts? We are playing AW by your design for years now and boosts are an integral part of AW. I don’t see how your “data” accounts for loyalty boosts alongside with your pricey potions with the given and known updates on upsized loyalty accruals.
Everything up till this point just screams to me that you guys don’t play your own game enough to sympathise with the sentiments of the player base now and I’m refraining myself from confirming that and hoping that something pro-player comes out of this.
Please do again the maths, because its not working.
Let me give you simple example and situation.
SOP influenced the number of r3s in game. Then we had Different deals. Some other easy events. Then we had 7.4. With the more availability of t5cc have increased the number of rank 3 champs players holding. R4 champs have come to the game. I have seen people with 700k rating with multiple r3s. So naturally we will see r3s even in mid tier wars like gold alliances in defense. Alliances like p4 and above always have 95%of their defenders at r3s. And even we are seeing the r4s in defense. Alliance wars have high hp pool in general than pre comp.
Now let's come to its next part. Let's say a player like me who is in t2/t3 war takes path 9 have lot to worry. With new ranks , defender have more attack values. Even block damage (counting whole path) will be enough to use 1 or 2 pots to get full hp. So under new system,there goes my weekly earned loyalty (assuming we won 2 and lost 1 war). There are possibilities player might die once or Twice during whole week. Now most of players are shifting to r3 attackers tooo above p4. So again here goes some more pots. Now question arise that even with very minimal mistake, will that player have sustainable means to keep up in war Potion-wise other than units fir whole season??!
Even if alliance wins all 3 wars weekly, there will be no sustainable means other than money if a member using 4 pots averagely per week( I don't know if in reality 4 will be enough for whole week). T4 pots are expensive and player tend to use them more cuz of item use limit pressure. Beside Most of the best rewards even after buff are after p1 and above. P4/p3/p2 ally fight in very tight competition to reach p1. Realistically that would consume more than items. It exhaust some players like officers and leaders mentally. So after this changes it will be enough to kill the mood of mild spenders and f2ps. They will simply not see any worth before p1. As of speaking now my few old alliances and friends already have decided to go Aq focus once comp item gets over.
Now I can't even imagine the situation in t1 wars as I am only playing t2/t3 wars. Aw gonna be costly at there as @Agent_X_zzz mentioned as they are the defending champs of Aw from last 2 or 3 seasons.
Those said calculation in reality are based upon the Aw meta where r3 were not that common and new tactics and system were not introduced. Don't forget that as new champs arriving with their god like essay long skill descriptions, Defense is getting more complex plus with unavoidable damage from certain champs will chip some hp resulting in more item use in aw.
Loyalty is also good source of running Aq (map 7 & 8). So not majorly but surely will impact to certain degree the alliances who run high tier war and Aq together.
This really feels like Kabam saying " Pay me" to the top competitive alliances which is filled with high skilled and end game players. Now we cant possibly afford War boosts because all of our Loyalty is going to healing and there is no other way to buy in game heals/war boosts that wont cost units(Real Money). This takes the only competitive non whale game mode and spits in its face. This is really a knife in the back to players who spent years building their rosters for war, signed up for kabam forums, built communities around this game and stuck around for almost a year while this game was near unplayable for long chunks of it.
War the last 2 seasons was as fun as it ever was and literally no one in the community asked for/was expecting this. If anything we wanted improvements but if you had asked the community 3 weeks ago if this would help not a single person would say this is a good idea. Please fix this or your gonna lose a lot of players who spend 500 to 1000$+ a year on this game.
BUT
How can you base the calculations on data from prior to these input issues? its illogical at best, these issues have been around for now approx 9/10 months, AW has changed in more ways than one in that space of time ..... new nodes on paths (for the most part they're more challenging, not stupidly so but still more), Attacker tactics have been introduced and changed, Defense tactics have changed more than once then there is the introduction of the attacker bans, your calculations are based on outdated data. You've said that the time since the issues while the compo has been flowing weekly is not included in your calculation when it absolutely should be! If I'm using (on average) 2 of the compo potions every war then that should be taken in account, a potion used is a potion used regardless of compensation, it just means that - if anything - id of used 2 or 3 more potions per war if it wasn't for the compensation.
This will be last season playing at tier 4 if these changes stick. Shame really as I do enjoy that game mode.
I have an account in an alliance running Maps 234, they actively participate in AW and not a single person uses potions because it’s not worth it.
I have been in alliances in virtually every tier of war and the only alliances who actively use potions are those who push in war and that’s maybe 10% at the very most and all of those are found in P3 and above. Of those pushing in P3 most are small alliances, the big alliances in the P4-3 bracket don’t need to use items because they’ve got the right balance of effort/reward for their rosters and ability.
The only barometer for item use that should have been taken is T2-1 alliances because these are the ones who are actively pushing in every single war, who’ll even consider using items off season for testing purposes and if these people who are being truly screwed here.
I guarantee if you recalculate these figures only using T1 alliances your numbers will be an order of magnitude out. Please, please sort this out. Your worst case scenario is that you end up giving lower alliances too much loyalty and they’re able to push beyond their skill level if they really want to and I just don’t see the problem with encouraging active participation in a game mode which makes up 50% of alliance participation. Many of the disillusioned players have stayed because they’re in tight communities and enjoying playing with friends, cutting 50% of the reason they play isn’t a wise move.
Yeah, this proposal is nowhere near the ball park
This is a direct quote from the alliance war potion update post:
"One of our goals with these changes was to better differentiate how resources are tied to different Alliance modes. Glory is an Alliance Quest resource, while Loyalty is tied to Alliance Wars."
By this logic, shouldn't loyalty no longer be tied to purchasing AQ tickets?
As the current AQ ticket system encourages splitting ticket purchase between multiple resources, its another source of loyalty drain, was that factored in as well?
Step 1: Add Lvl5 Health Potion (14k Health).
Reason: Higher Health Pool. We need those potions.
Step 2: Add Loyalty<->Health fixed exchange rate: 1k Health costs 1k Loyalty. But the maths below will show you that it's still bad and we need to set it like: 1k Health = 500 Loyalty.
Example:
6k Potion costs 6k Loylty
9.5k Potion costs 9500 Loyalty
14k Potion costs 14k Loyalty
Reason: We need variability too, we don't wand use 14k potions to heal 3k Health.
Step 3: Increase the minimum Loyalty Per War for Loss. Significantly.
Reason: (Can not believe You still don't understand it) Because if Alliance lost a war then players can buy only ONE 14k Potion (add it 'cause we need it!). But the loss isn't the fact that you didn't use anything, you can use 15 items per war and lose it. And then get Loyalty to but only 1 Potion? BS.
Step 4: Increase the loyalty per war for Win +50% from Loss amount of Loyalty. Not x2, +50% is enough. Why? Who lost the war - they still was trying to win, they need Loyalty too.
How much?
I think: 40k Loyalty per Loss and 60k Loyalty for winners, I think it's fare enough. But it's THE MINIMUM. If you will add less then that - Players will not be happy. Trust me.
Easy Maths: Rank1 Master vs. Rank2 Master. First has 12-0, Second - 11-1.
12-0 has 12*60k Loyalty + 28k = 748k Loyalty.
11-1 has 11*60k + 40k + 28k = 728k Loyalty.
10-2 has 11*60k + 40k + 28k = 708k Loyalty.
etc.
With prices above - 748k Loyalty gives Player 53 14k Health Potions. 53 Potions Per Season. It meants that it's only 4 potions PER WAR!!! I used 4 14k Potions after 1 fight sometimes.
I Play in Tier 1 AW and I know what I'm talking about. And the Maths above shows the problem: You still ain't good enough when doing something for players. And it's not the only my position. It's still the fact that the maths above proofs and shows that even if You will do like I said here - Players still will be having to forget about Unstoppabe Colossus, about Class Boosts and etc.
So, 1k Health = 500 Loyalty is probably the answer. And add 14k potions in the loyalty Store. It's 2022 and we can not use 6-9.5k health potions anymore. That's the fact too. Hope you will read this and get that it's how changes should be like.
I understand all alliances will be in the same boat (except for heavy spending ones), but please I urge you as a big fan of AW to reconsider your calculations (or motives, if monetization is the reason behind this). The feeling of dying in a AW fight to then spend 600 units to heal up is just rubbing salt into the wound, as is any move to push away from map exploration.
The AW game mode generates a lot of interest from the skilled, low to moderate spending community. In my opinion, a lot of interest in game will be lost if this is the approach going forward.
This measure is going impact so hard on that social structure that is going force those stablished bonds to break, and will have a direct impact on veterans leaving and quiting the game.
You are not only breaking a game mode, you are breaking the foundation of your game.