Alliance Wars Discussion Thread

Hey Summoners!

We've just dropped some information on our next iteration of Alliance Wars, and this one includes some big changes to the Scoring method! Take a look at the announcement Thread and let us know if you have any questions or feedback!

http://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/36645/alliance-wars-scoring-update-coming-december-13th

We've closed the last discussion thread, because it references older information that is no longer relevant. You can find that archived thread here: http://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/31767/alliance-wars-discussion-2-0/

Comments

Xthea9

Defender kills Vs attack bonus, if the discussion is between these two then we need a separate thread , which doesn’t make any sense, consider the attack bonus as a substitute for defender kills point , but on a marginal level. This will at least keep a check on those Alliances who goes all in and use all the available resources in AW , now let them use you will get some extra bonus points at the end. The only concern is , these points if somehow got mitigated by the other score system,then it’s just a waste of effort by doing all these new changes.

We will get a clear picture when we will have our first war. I am ok with the score system if I have the liberty to make changes in our strategy to get max score but I don’t want to get caught with the limitations of this new system.like the previous when you can’t do anything when you reach to the limit of the scoring.

Does any one have more info on how this diversity thing works to get max points.

Mmx1991

Sanvondes wrote: »

We've come full circle but with harder nodes and we're all thankful, lol. Kabam employing the long-con!

Long cons prey on desperation my friend.

DNA3000

GroundedWisdom wrote: »

DNA3000 wrote: »

Slux83 wrote: »

Top alliances already clear the map 100% every time. Having a remaining defender mechanics won't change anything. The only important thing as you said, is skill, but you are missing the concept.

SKILL = KILL THE OPPONENT WITHOUT BEING KILLED

So please bring back defense kills

I don't think you read the announcement or any of the discussion following it. In the announced system, if you kill a placed defender without being killed once, you will earn 240 bonus points for your alliance. If you die once, you will only earn 160 points if you defeat the defender. You will only earn 80 bonus points if you die twice before defeating the defender. And if you die three or more times before you defeat the defender, you will earn zero bonus points. If you don't defeat the defender at all the other side will get 250 points for the placed defender remaining alive. That is definitely a system that rewards skillful play on attack.

Under the announced system there's no specific reason to bring back defender kill points, and in fact that would be a step backward.

Correct. They've also removed Attack Kills metrics.

More precisely, they shifted Attacker Kills points into Surviving Defender points. Surviving Defender points are synonymous with Attacker Kill points except they correct a deficiency with attack kill points under the new system: they prevent an alliance from denying attack kill points from the opponent by simply not placing defenders to kill.

If both sides place the same number of defenders, then surviving defender points are mathematically identical to attacker kill points. If one side places fewer defenders, then they are scored as if the other side killed those missing defenders.

Bottom line: you cannot lower your opponent's score by refusing to place defenders. This is an important benefit of the new system.

Hdj2

@Kabam Miike
@Kabam Carbon
@Kabam Vydious
@Kabam Loto
@Kabam Pertinax

I understand the changes and like the idea of it but when it comes to placement and attack there are tons of alliances that don't have all members joining defense but then join attack. I see how the new changes to the scoring will hopefully change this but in my opinion ( which I know doesn't matter ) aw should be setup so that if a player doesn't join in on defense they can't play during attack and I can't see that being a hard thing for you guys to implement into the game. I for one am tired of getting matched against alliances that have maybe 6 or 7 members place champs in all bgs but then when attack starts all their bgs have 10 players

DNA3000

Hdj2 wrote: »

@Kabam Miike
@Kabam Carbon
@Kabam Vydious
@Kabam Loto
@Kabam Pertinax

I understand the changes and like the idea of it but when it comes to placement and attack there are tons of alliances that don't have all members joining defense but then join attack. I see how the new changes to the scoring will hopefully change this but in my opinion ( which I know doesn't matter ) aw should be setup so that if a player doesn't join in on defense they can't play during attack and I can't see that being a hard thing for you guys to implement into the game. I for one am tired of getting matched against alliances that have maybe 6 or 7 members place champs in all bgs but then when attack starts all their bgs have 10 players

Well now they are in effect getting penalized an enormous amount for not placing, so you should be happy to get matched against those guys.

Consider: for each player that doesn't place five defenders, that's five nodes that you are now almost guaranteed to get the 240 attack bonus for, because obviously you won't die on those nodes. On top of that they will automatically lose 250 points per defender that cannot be a "surviving defender" anymore. Not only will the defensive map be easier for you, they are in effect handing you 2450 easy points per player that doesn't place defenders. An enemy alliance that only has 6 players placing defenders is practically handing you a victory: they are shifting almost ten thousand points in your direction. If they place only 6 in three battlegroups and you place ten, that's 29,400 easy points they are handing you.

(Note: you still have to attack and traverse the map, but that's still an enormous advantage they are handing you now.)

hurricant

Kudos Kabam. Been critical of wars in the past, but this seems like it may have fixed it.

DNA3000

Xthea9 wrote: »

We will get a clear picture when we will have our first war. I am ok with the score system if I have the liberty to make changes in our strategy to get max score but I don’t want to get caught with the limitations of this new system.like the previous when you can’t do anything when you reach to the limit of the scoring.

Does any one have more info on how this diversity thing works to get max points.

Technically speaking, to get the maximum amount of points you need to kill all three bosses (I'm presuming three battlegroups), explore 100% of the map, kill every defender on the map while not dying once, and place a maximal diversity defense (i.e. unique defenders per battlegroup). On top of that, you can lower your opponent's score by 80 points for every kill your defenders gets, up to a maximum of three kills per defender (240 points).

So you have two things to consider. You need to maximize how many points you get, but you can also try to reduce the points your opponent gets by generating defensive kills. The trade off is that a unique defender is now worth 30 bonus diversity points, but a defender kill is worth 80 (up to three, as mentioned previously). So a duplicate defender that can get a kill is worth more than a unique but weak defender that won't generate a kill.

The best strategy for placing defenders is situational to your alliance and your likely opposition's capabilities.

Mmx1991

I'm just disappointed how we circled back into a tougher situation than during AW 14.0.

Worse nodes.
Worse layout.

It's great that we finally got back a metric for skill but we're back where we were and another 2 steps back. I don't want to use the word "long con", but it's a little fitting. We no longer have Thorns, but we have Bane, Buffet, Masochism, Spite, and Arc Overload. It doesn't make any sense.

SolarSpartan

It seems that Attack bonus should be weighted. A standard 240 on most nodes seems ok, but when you get to the mini bosses and boss (especially a boss) it’s naturally going to take more champs to kill a boss. Making the starting value higher for these specific nodes seems necessary.

Micklownick

Oh what short memories we have.

To recap, new war comes out and its 100% diversity....kabam says its here to stay so players empty their resources into less then ideal champs, but boy do we cause an uproar

They do a little bit of rejuggling, and it's 100% defender rating with a side of 100% diversity...players continue to empty their resources into less then ideal champs and we just continue to murmur back and forth while kabam says they are still making changes.

Once everyone has exhausted their resources kabam says they have managed to fix it all and they were listening to us the whole time and have changed it back to what war used to be (mostly skill and good defenders) with just a small side of 2.5% diversity....sigh...here comes a gold realm and a wave of events just in time for 6*s....

My only point is this was a rolled out series of events to increase player spending both of resources and actual money.

we just got the ole, wash, rinse, repeat treatment. your a clever clever girl kabam.

LeNoirFaineant

Mmx1991 wrote: »

I'm just disappointed how we circled back into a tougher situation than during AW 14.0.

Worse nodes.
Worse layout.

It's great that we finally got back a metric for skill but we're back where we were and another 2 steps back. I don't want to use the word "long con", but it's a little fitting. We no longer have Thorns, but we have Bane, Buffet, Masochism, Spite, and Arc Overload. It doesn't make any sense.

I agree. I never minded the thorns anyway.

Mmx1991

LeNoirFaineant wrote: »

Mmx1991 wrote: »

I'm just disappointed how we circled back into a tougher situation than during AW 14.0.

Worse nodes.
Worse layout.

It's great that we finally got back a metric for skill but we're back where we were and another 2 steps back. I don't want to use the word "long con", but it's a little fitting. We no longer have Thorns, but we have Bane, Buffet, Masochism, Spite, and Arc Overload. It doesn't make any sense.

I agree. I never minded the thorns anyway.

Thorns had multiple counters. Archangel, Crossbones, Black Widow, etc..

Some of these new nodes with the right placement have almost zero counters giving us no option but to whip out our wallets if we don't even possess the exact right champ for that specific node/defender combination. Thorns seems fun compared to the stuff they have now.

unknown

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DNA3000

Mmx1991 wrote: »

LeNoirFaineant wrote: »

Mmx1991 wrote: »

I'm just disappointed how we circled back into a tougher situation than during AW 14.0.

Worse nodes.
Worse layout.

It's great that we finally got back a metric for skill but we're back where we were and another 2 steps back. I don't want to use the word "long con", but it's a little fitting. We no longer have Thorns, but we have Bane, Buffet, Masochism, Spite, and Arc Overload. It doesn't make any sense.

I agree. I never minded the thorns anyway.

Thorns had multiple counters. Archangel, Crossbones, Black Widow, etc..

Some of these new nodes with the right placement have almost zero counters giving us no option but to whip out our wallets if we don't even possess the exact right champ for that specific node/defender combination. Thorns seems fun compared to the stuff they have now.

I don't think there's any node/champion combination that has zero or almost zero counters. There are combinations that are harder to counter, but that's not the same thing as saying those counters are unavailable.

Also, Black Widow and Crossbones were not universal counters for thorns. Mordo was a common placement on thorns, and Mordo makes Black Widow a subpar choice and Crossbones an even worse choice if the defender has MD.

GbSarkar

Remember the flare node we saw in the first AW introduction video by Kabam? That wasn't present in the map when AW was released. Current AW has that node. So yeah, thorough multiple "updates" to war, they finally brought it to a state they had in mind from the beginning and now they reduce the effectiveness of the stat that made season 2 war bearable (resulting in no 5+ NC, Magik, Dorm etc on the map) to virtually nothing and we thank them for that. Wonderful!

TomieCzech

Finally something that at least looks promising!! Is it 2 or 3 months since the initial screw up?

@Kabam Miike I have few questions:

1) Why couldn't your team come up with something like this at the beginning when you released the major update for war? You're making it sound like the skill and attack performance is the new major breakthrough in war game mode design - patent pending...

2) Are you going to compensate us for all the wasted time and efforts during the period between now and when you introduced that ****??? All those wars everyone was supposed to win, but lost by 1-50 pts.

3) Have you fired the person who "developed" or was in charge of the screwed up war game mode yet??? Or is he / she still working at Kabam and we should expect more such **** to come out of him / her?

Thanks

unknown

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Voluntaris

Biro wrote: »

Kabam Miike wrote: »

Hey Summoners!

We've just dropped some information on our next iteration of Alliance Wars, and this one includes some big changes to the Scoring method! Take a look at the announcement Thread and let us know if you have any questions or feedback!

http://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/36645/alliance-wars-scoring-update-coming-december-13th

We've closed the last discussion thread, because it references older information that is no longer relevant. You can find that archived thread here: http://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/31767/alliance-wars-discussion-2-0/

.Dear Mike I like these changes but
I don't think dropping diversty will help weaker alliance it will open fire on them

We will enter a war made of Ice man & magic & hyprion all duplicated are top killing tier
Diversty now will be neglected
This is not a good idea
There will be no balance in the fight
For example my alliance can drop 10 magic in bg
This changes will only reward very skilled players & kabams profit

This will make placement more interesting but on the otherside fighting a couple of Icemen for example in 1 map will be painful

You should revise that desicion

Hate to break it to ya, but even before these awesome changes go into effect, many alliances have already switched weeks ago to mostly mystic defenses. Thankfully, there are even more attack counters to such mystic defenders than ever before. It takes a lot of practice to foster the skill, but that's what makes Alliance War such a fun game mode when skill is rewarded with points.

Anonymous

Biro wrote: »

Kabam Miike wrote: »

Hey Summoners!

We've just dropped some information on our next iteration of Alliance Wars, and this one includes some big changes to the Scoring method! Take a look at the announcement Thread and let us know if you have any questions or feedback!

http://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/36645/alliance-wars-scoring-update-coming-december-13th

We've closed the last discussion thread, because it references older information that is no longer relevant. You can find that archived thread here: http://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/31767/alliance-wars-discussion-2-0/

.Dear Mike I like these changes but
I don't think dropping diversty will help weaker alliance it will open fire on them

We will enter a war made of Ice man & magic & hyprion all duplicated are top killing tier
Diversty now will be neglected
This is not a good idea
There will be no balance in the fight
For example my alliance can drop 10 magic in bg
This changes will only reward very skilled players & kabams profit

This will make placement more interesting but on the otherside fighting a couple of Icemen for example in 1 map will be painful

You should revise that desicion

There are many other areas of the game that help you get to a higher level. This part of the game is based on skill mainly as it should be. It's one part of the game that we have to test our strategy and tactics against other alliances.

Jackie2Cokes

Are they just staying away from this thread and peoples questions now?

Did they weigh in on the update to rewards? Or are they continuing with the almost 4 month old reason they gave at release of the updated AW...."There are currently no adjustments being made to the rewards in Alliance Wars, but a revamp is on our radar"

Anonymous

Jackie2Cokes wrote: »

Are they just staying away from this thread and peoples questions now?

Did they weigh in on the update to rewards? Or are they continuing with the almost 4 month old reason they gave at release of the updated AW...."There are currently no adjustments being made to the rewards in Alliance Wars, but a revamp is on our radar"

They finally listened to the player base with the latest announcement making the fundamental change to be about skill. I am actually hopeful that they will address rewards soon in the next couple updates.

NinjaiX

Jackie2Cokes wrote: »

Are they just staying away from this thread and peoples questions now?

Did they weigh in on the update to rewards? Or are they continuing with the almost 4 month old reason they gave at release of the updated AW...."There are currently no adjustments being made to the rewards in Alliance Wars, but a revamp is on our radar"

They’re definitely reading as I got a warning for belittling someone (apparently) but no response to any of the questions posed by many people in this thread alone. You would have thought since this is a major update which has gone full circle and made people spend resources on trash champions would have warranted a response but in typical fashion we get nothing...

Anonymous

NinjaiX wrote: »

Jackie2Cokes wrote: »

Are they just staying away from this thread and peoples questions now?

Did they weigh in on the update to rewards? Or are they continuing with the almost 4 month old reason they gave at release of the updated AW...."There are currently no adjustments being made to the rewards in Alliance Wars, but a revamp is on our radar"

They’re definitely reading as I got a warning for belittling someone (apparently) but no response to any of the questions posed by many people in this thread alone. You would have thought since this is a major update which has gone full circle and made people spend resources on trash champions would have warranted a response but in typical fashion we get nothing...

Nobody forced anyone to rank trash champs.

Knockyaassout

I love all of these changes but now that I’ve ranked up a whole team just for diversity what happens to them? Now that it’s all about placing a strong defense they will have no use. Are you going to be giving rank down tickets for all the rank ups that were done just for diversity? Other then that I like these changes and wish this is how it was from the beginning.

World Eater

Are specific tiers playing on specific levels of difficulty? I recall post from a mod listing each tier and level of map difficulty , but can't find that's post anywhere.

I ask becuz we are in tier8 and it shows we're playing on the "hard" map.
Why are we on the hard map , playing for 3* and 4* shards?
I thought the hard map cut off was at tier7, where5* shards are rewarded.

LeNoirFaineant

@MikeHock if you face an alliance in a different tier the system picks which map you will run but the rewards are still whatever tier you are in. At least that is my understanding. After a few losses we got the tier 2 map facing a tier 2 opponent but we still had tier 1 rewards.

World Eater

LeNoirFaineant wrote: »

@MikeHock if you face an alliance in a different tier the system picks which map you will run but the rewards are still whatever tier you are in. At least that is my understanding. After a few losses we got the tier 2 map facing a tier 2 opponent but we still had tier 1 rewards.

Thanks, LNF (hope you don't mind I abbreviated your name). Still, that seems rather silly, considering that our rewards don't really match the level of difficulty we're about to face. I wish I could find that mod post showing tier levels and map difficulties.

GroundedWisdom

That's correct. If you're placed in a Match against an Ally in a lower Tier, you play the lower Map, but receive the Rewards for your Tier.

LeNoirFaineant

GroundedWisdom wrote: »

That's correct. If you're placed in a Match against an Ally in a lower Tier, you play the lower Map, but receive the Rewards for your Tier.

Actually I believe you have a chance to play either map, lower or higher. I don't think it defaults to the lower.

GroundedWisdom

LeNoirFaineant wrote: »

GroundedWisdom wrote: »

That's correct. If you're placed in a Match against an Ally in a lower Tier, you play the lower Map, but receive the Rewards for your Tier.

Actually I believe you have a chance to play either map, lower or higher. I don't think it defaults to the lower.

I've had several lower. Haven't seen a higher. I seem to remember a comment made by a Mod that the easier Map comes up.