Alliance Wars Discussion 2.0

Hey All,

Since so much has changed since we first introduced the new Alliance Wars Map and scoring method, most of the information contained within is no longer relevant. We're starting a new discussion thread on Alliance Wars here.

You can still find the old thread archived here.

Comments

LeNoirFaineant

GroundedWisdom wrote: »

If you're trying to convince me that removing the ability to penalize others is punishment itself, then yes. We won't agree.

I'm beyond trying to convince you of anything war related.We are starting from fundamentally different views of what war is supposed to be. But the idea that defensive kills was a "punishment" is stupid. Especially if you don't grant that a lower defensive rating in the current system is a "punishment." I disagree with the pejorative nature of your terms and your idea of what war should be. It's not worth debating at this point. I believe that the vast vast majority of the player base wants a war like I want and that should be the determining factor so it really doesn't matter who is right.

WOK

In all fairness, I try to look at both sides perspective as I am capable of and I'd like to add some explanation for those that may be new to the game and reading @GroundedWisdom hardline notion that D kills did not involve skill and pinished the team that died more.
The AW defense champs are run by the AI with just our champ rank/lvl and PI to go by, as far as I'm aware this game is not setup to record our individual playing style and incorporate it into the AI(would be pretty incredible though).
For the ally placing defense there is no skill involved in obtaining kills, I make this statement for ONLY that context.
I view the points during a war as accruing(+ X) points because there have never been or present now, a scoring metric that deducted(- X) points from any participating alliance(other than the War rating after a winner is determined). Every category during the battle accrues points for their respective alliance, as did D kills. So the idea that an ally is being "punished" for dying more is akin to them being punished for not taking out the Boss node.

The skill aspect most are arguing for is on the Allys Attack phase. Simply put as some fail to agree with, is that the allys Attack is being rewarded intrinsic points for taking down the opponent while submitting to less KO's. TBH, I find it laughable to think anyone could disagree that the team that gave up less kills to the opponent(especially if the opponents were much stronger in rating) is not reflective of displaying skill, and that skill should not be rewarded.

Also the idea that an opponent that is not as skilled in fighting and gives up more kills should be rewarded the same amount of points goes against everything I've come to learn of competition.

In boxing, do judges give the same amount of points to both fighters although 1 fighter hit his opponent 100 times more or got hit 100 times less?(other than a KO or crooked contests LOL)

Anonymous

Defender kills was not the defining metric. Shows how much you actually know about war. The defining metric was exploration along with boss kills. Then, if that was tied, defender kills was looked at as a tie breaker. It was a fair system with few flaws. Of those flaws, defender kills was not one. The main flaw that I would say existed in 14.0 and before was that a top tier alliance that fought hard and barely lost to another top tier alliance got less rewards than a winner in tier 3. Tier 3 alliance wars were nowhere near as tough and competitive as a top 50 matchup.

Mmx1991

GroundedWisdom wrote: »

The fact of the matter is, it is not necessary to punish Players for losing Champs in the name of skill.

In a contest to see who's better, losing champs should result in a deduction in points, otherwise, how does a contest measure who's better?

Or do you not care who is better?

World Eater

linux wrote: »

Carames wrote: »

I don't think that that's a bad thing, though. Wars shouldn't be 100% completion from both sides every time. There should just be a better way of going about it. The whole thing needs a good rethinking, in my opinion

With a different configuration (buffs like arc overload off required paths), I'd agree with this -- having optional paths which are hard but give alliances a chance to show how they can beat difficult content would provide some competition. The current map doesn't encourage treating paths as optional -- there are ways to do so, but you don't avoid all the overpowered nodes, and given how the links are set up using one of those approaches makes user error likely (clicking on the wrong side and dooming your BG or wasting one of your reserves).

The current map doesn't encourage treating paths as optional

is only of the biggest downfalls of this new map. Kabam claiming 100% (or something close to that) wasn't the intended goal, but making a map like this is a huge contradiction.

Mmx1991

Wolvie wrote: »

Does this node look reasonably healthy to you Kabam?

https://youtu.be/kFksoigjozU

Exactly what kind of planning would we need here?

You explicitly stated that you took out defender kill points because it discouraged players from attacking and instilled feelings of defeat.

What kind of feeling do you think 20k heals every 6 seconds gives to players other than contempt for having to spend units on a largely unbeatable node?

We lost war cause we gave up on this node. It "discouraged us from continuing our assault on the opposing alliance". What do you have to say about this?

Like an answer to this.

unknown

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Acanthus

Mmx1991 wrote: »

Wolvie wrote: »

Does this node look reasonably healthy to you Kabam?

https://youtu.be/kFksoigjozU

Exactly what kind of planning would we need here?

You explicitly stated that you took out defender kill points because it discouraged players from attacking and instilled feelings of defeat.

What kind of feeling do you think 20k heals every 6 seconds gives to players other than contempt for having to spend units on a largely unbeatable node?

We lost war cause we gave up on this node. It "discouraged us from continuing our assault on the opposing alliance". What do you have to say about this?

Like an answer to this.

They already answered that the node is working as intended

Mmx1991

Acanthus wrote: »

They already answered that the node is working as intended

We know it's what they intended. We want answers to that poster's reasonable questions.

DNA3000

WOK wrote: »

For the ally placing defense there is no skill involved in obtaining kills, I make this statement for ONLY that context.

...

The skill aspect most are arguing for is on the Allys Attack phase. Simply put as some fail to agree with, is that the allys Attack is being rewarded intrinsic points for taking down the opponent while submitting to less KO's. TBH, I find it laughable to think anyone could disagree that the team that gave up less kills to the opponent(especially if the opponents were much stronger in rating) is not reflective of displaying skill, and that skill should not be rewarded.

This has been mentioned before, but it seems to be something that is too obvious for most people to mention, and weirdly too opaque for one person to acknowledge.

To simplify even further and state the obvious, the statement "it doesn't take skill to earn defender kill points" is both true and ludicrously irrelevant. Defender kill points are not intended to measure the skill of the player placing defense. They are intended to measure the skill of the attacker attacking the defense. It doesn't take skill to earn defensive kill points. It takes skill to avoid granting them to the opponent.

Incidentally, I find the phrase "defender kills are not skill" to be word salad. Yes, defender kills are not skill. Only skills can be skills. Defender kills were not removed from war. Defenders still kill things. What changed are defender kill points, and defender kill points are not earned by the defender, they are granted by the attacker to the defender when they die. It is impossible for anyone to "try" to earn a lot of defensive kills or defensive kill points, because it is impossible to earn a defensive kill point. Only the attacker can die and award one defender kill and the associated points, and only by reviving over and over again can the *attacker* award a lot of defender kill points to the defense.

Defender kill points are about attackers, not defenders. They measured the skill of the attacker. That role has not been replaced by any other metric, and NO amount of node tweaking can replace it. Nodes can be easy, nodes can be hard, nodes can be impossible to defeat. But since no part of war distinguishes an attacker that dies a trillion times before defeating a node and an attacker that loses zero health defeating a node, AW fails to measure the individual skill of the attackers regardless of its difficulty.

DNA3000

Mmx1991 wrote: »

Acanthus wrote: »

They already answered that the node is working as intended

We know it's what they intended. We want answers to that poster's reasonable questions.

I'm afraid there's only one question in the poster's post that can be reasonably answered, and it has been answered many times by both Kabam and other players. The "kind of planning" you need to prepare for that node is to bring an attacker that can either block or reverse heals, or doesn't feed buffet. That's Kabam's current official statement on the difficulty of that node as far as anyone is aware.

The rest of it aren't, to be fair, reasonable questions. They are rhetorical challenges. I currently don't have a high estimation of the devs' design skills as they pertain to alliance war at the moment, but they would have to be completely brain dead to walk into a rhetorical challenge.

I'm not saying I agree with the design of node 24 or anything else about 16.0 AW. I think it reflects a poor understanding of the game specifically and basic game design principles in general. But "what do you have to say" is never a reasonable question. "Does this look reasonably healthy to you" is also a pretty leading question I would not directly answer myself.

Acanthus

Mmx1991 wrote: »

Acanthus wrote: »

They already answered that the node is working as intended

We know it's what they intended. We want answers to that poster's reasonable questions.

Which are...?

MEKA5

@Kabam Miike Kabam please Bring back defenders kills!
AW is boring as hell and Victory's based purely on Defenders Ratings!!!
Boring boring boring...
#bringbackdefenderskills #boring

Hulk_77

Mmx1991 wrote: »

Wolvie wrote: »

Does this node look reasonably healthy to you Kabam?

https://youtu.be/kFksoigjozU

Exactly what kind of planning would we need here?

You explicitly stated that you took out defender kill points because it discouraged players from attacking and instilled feelings of defeat.

What kind of feeling do you think 20k heals every 6 seconds gives to players other than contempt for having to spend units on a largely unbeatable node?

We lost war cause we gave up on this node. It "discouraged us from continuing our assault on the opposing alliance". What do you have to say about this?

Like an answer to this.

I would love for you to stop bumping this. This is like the 8th time.

I don't work for Kabam but I'm happy to answer for you. Node 24 is not meant to be attacked with Starlord. Try Guilly or a healblocker. It's really simple, my alliance never dies to it.

RagamugginGunner

GroundedWisdom wrote: »

People jumping Tiers is not the problem. That's what happens when you progress. When you have Allies being Matched agaisnt opponents with extreme differences, and metrics penalizing Kills, that's an imbalanced trap. Now I'm sure those that bypass that consider themselves very skilled. However, I've said it before and I'll say it again. Defender Kills are not necessary for skill. What they serve to do is penalize the opponent for dying. That's it. Rating is indicative of many things. Time invested, Resources used, etc. It's not just some arbitrary number after Prestige is considered. When you have an entire system that is mismatched because metrics aren't a reflection of actual overall capabilities and Rosters, that creates a problem. War is not about keeping the growth in the hands of people who die less, regardless of the general idea. It's about progressing as a collective. Which is why collective metrics are important.

Wrong.

RagamugginGunner

What are the chances that WebSnatcher's alliance is made up entirely of his secondary accounts with his main account as the leader? That may be the reason he only runs war once a week and two BGs tops. Could really explain his stance on the game.

Mmx1991

DNA3000 wrote: »

I'm not saying I agree with the design of node 24 or anything else about 16.0 AW. I think it reflects a poor understanding of the game specifically and basic game design principles in general. But "what do you have to say" is never a reasonable question. "Does this look reasonably healthy to you" is also a pretty leading question I would not directly answer myself.

Well, how would you phrase it then counselor?

Cause Kabam hasn't said anything other than its working as intended. But that doesn't do us any good. Given the right champ node 24 is harder than all boss and miniboss nodes. Didn't they give take out Thorns and Slashed Tires because it's whats we wanted? If they wanted to give us a break why did they add Buffet and Masochism and Bane?

"Here's some new and exciting changes. No Thorns. Diversity!". There is no diversity. We're facing the same few champs on these ridiculous nodes making it feel like 14.0 all over again...and it's even worse because if you don't bring the exact specific precise tool from your toolbox you're dead and throwing as many units on it won't help. And some of these nodes can be countered but the defenders on those nodes can't.

Try fighting a MD Magik on Node 44 in Tier 1 (bleed and spite). Limbo all day. You can counter the node or you can counter Magik but you can't do both. Dorm, maybe. 14.0 wasn't like this. Everything could be countered back then with a simple champ. Need a power control champ? You could use Vision or Hawkeye or Magik. Needs a champ to deal with Thorns? Black Widow, Crossbones, Arch Angel. Now if you don't have the exact one you're toast.

These nodes are much worse than 14.0. The map layout is terrible. There is no express routes to kill the boss like under 14.0. Now it's 100% or nothing. And 5 minibosses instead of 3. And skill doesn't matter. And outcomes are predetermined. And you need a tax accountant to set up your defense. And Mystic Wars will be back full time once Kabam tweaks nodes yet again.

They took out A because they wanted to give us B, then they slowly made it A again and much worse than A. How can they not see what they're doing? Their actions contradict their words.

Mmx1991

Hulk_77 wrote: »

I would love for you to stop bumping this. This is like the 8th time.

Try twice, not eight. Others want answers too.

Hulk_77

Mmx1991 wrote: »

Hulk_77 wrote: »

I would love for you to stop bumping this. This is like the 8th time.

Try twice, not eight. Others want answers too.

Whoever. It's been bumped endlessly, it is on every page since it was posted at least one time, usually twice.

All it is doing is making noise and distracting from the actual issue: war is no longer a competition and no longer fun

Mmx1991

Hulk_77 wrote: »

Whoever. It's been bumped endlessly

As it should be. Need Kabam's honest thoughts on this. Working as intended or not it's a ridiculous node.

All it is doing is making noise and distracting from the actual issue: war is no longer a competition and no longer fun

The real issue is Kabam not listening to us. That post he made about node 24 exemplifies this perfectly.

DNA3000

Mmx1991 wrote: »

DNA3000 wrote: »

I'm not saying I agree with the design of node 24 or anything else about 16.0 AW. I think it reflects a poor understanding of the game specifically and basic game design principles in general. But "what do you have to say" is never a reasonable question. "Does this look reasonably healthy to you" is also a pretty leading question I would not directly answer myself.

Well, how would you phrase it then counselor?

Cause Kabam hasn't said anything other than its working as intended. But that doesn't do us any good.

Kabam has stated that the node is working as intended and that the intent of the node is to encourage players to put defenders on it that will then require the attacking team to use the right attackers with the right tactics to defeat it.

You may not like the answer, but asking the question repeatedly isn't going to change the answer.

It is a valid question to ask, why is node 24 appropriate when other nodes like Thorns were not, but the fact that node 24 is only one of many high strength nodes added to AW suggests that the answer to that question is that they didn't remove thorns because it was hard, they removed thorns because of the very specific nature of thorns but were willing to replace thorns with nodes equal to or even greater difficulty that simply didn't have the specific mechanics of thorns.

It is obvious to me that this is their answer to the removal of defender kill points. Rather than use medium strength nodes and judging how hard it is for us to get past them (via attacker deaths), they would rather use high strength nodes and judge whether we get past them at all. Which seems to contradict everything else they said about what the were trying to achieve with the initial 15.0 AW changes, but they don't appear to be responding to questions regarding what their intent is, except to repeat prior contradictory statements and to say we wanted them.

Mmx1991

DNA3000 wrote: »

Rather than use medium strength nodes and judging how hard it is for us to get past them (via attacker deaths), they would rather use high strength nodes and judge whether we get past them at all. Which seems to contradict everything else they said about what the were trying to achieve with the initial 15.0 AW changes, but they don't appear to be responding to questions regarding what their intent is, except to repeat prior contradictory statements and to say we wanted them.

Exactly.

Anyway you can finesse them into answering with your non-threatening but hard hitting questions? They're ignoring everyone else.

AlexVanDamme81

Is possible revamp rewards? From December, a monthly quest give more red fragments than a full month of rank 1 wars (whit 12 win.....).
Game evolving (finally). Is worthy aw rewards (the same from more than 2 years) been revamped.

NinjaWarrior99

Merry Christmas kabam

unknown

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Voluntaris

Been months now with the continued abysmal state of Alliance Wars.

Can we please get an update on future changes.... please don't just give us yet another "node adjustments" update.

Alliance War is in desperate need of a point system to reflect SKILL - this can take the form of Defender Kill Points or via reduction of attack points for each time an attacker dies against a defender.

Without having such points to reflect skill, AW 2.0 is just a more expensive/more boring/uncompetitive Alliance Quest.

What used to be the most fun part of MCoC is now the most boring and not fun.