Alliance Wars Discussion Thread

There's a big difference between hard & intermediate maps and it impacts defensive placement a lot. If it says we're playing the hard map that's what we base our defensive set up around.... not that we should be playing the hard map in tier8 for 4* shards.

This just doesn't make any sense. We just did another war in tier8 on the intermediate map. Now we're still in tier8 but play vs a hard map? IMHO this should be consistent and looked at & possibly fixed.... unless there's something I'm not understanding

It's probably a matter of both Allies playing the same Map. It wouldn't be fair to the lower Ally. Unless they added a further Matchmaking parameter that only Matched the same Tier.

To be honest, I'm not exactly sure how it's determined. For us, it's not a huge deal. Our Rewards are the same, but the Map is easier. Our lineup doesn't change.

Here's a breakdown of our last few wars:

Tier8 - Intermediate Map (Win)
Tier7 - Hard Map (Win)
Tier6 - Hard Map (Loss)
Tier7 - Hard Map (Loss)
Tier8 - Intermediate Map (Loss)
Tier9 - Intermediate Map (Win)

Today: Tier8 - Hard Map !?

Last 2 tier8 Wars were on the intermediate Map.
Today in tier8, Hard Map.

Makes no sense.

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linux wrote: »

MikeHock wrote: »

There's a big difference between hard & intermediate maps and it impacts defensive placement a lot. If it says we're playing the hard map that's what we base our defensive set up around.... not that we should be playing the hard map in tier8 for 4* shards.

This just doesn't make any sense. We just did another war in tier8 on the intermediate map. Now we're still in tier8 but play vs a hard map? IMHO this should be consistent and looked at & possibly fixed.... unless there's something I'm not understanding

Kabam Miike previously asserted that when two alliances at different tiers are matched, it will randomly choose the map for one or the other tier. Of course, your rewards are based on your tier. In my alliance, we alternate between the T1 and T2 maps at present, though we're mostly getting T2 rewards.

I'm looking forward to the changes in the next iteration, but it won't help here -- we can reasonably expect that some alliances will alternate near the boundary between different maps, and Kabam's solution seems reasonable given their choice of how to match. (That said -- it way new alliances are placed is really horrible. Last time we started it took two months to reach our actual level. Two months of rolling over alliances that had no hope ... this was before 14.0, so it's not like we were even giving them easy diversity matches.

I do recall the post, but if the map is chosen at random, that affects the placement of our defensive heroes since there are big differences in the nodes. I'm arranging based on a Hard Map since that it what we're showing.

Besides that; I was pretty sure a Kabam mod made a post that showed that specific tiers play specific map levels. I can't find that post since it wasn't in any announcements and it's buried/lost in these forums.

420sam

MikeHock wrote: »

linux wrote: »

MikeHock wrote: »

There's a big difference between hard & intermediate maps and it impacts defensive placement a lot. If it says we're playing the hard map that's what we base our defensive set up around.... not that we should be playing the hard map in tier8 for 4* shards.

This just doesn't make any sense. We just did another war in tier8 on the intermediate map. Now we're still in tier8 but play vs a hard map? IMHO this should be consistent and looked at & possibly fixed.... unless there's something I'm not understanding

Kabam Miike previously asserted that when two alliances at different tiers are matched, it will randomly choose the map for one or the other tier. Of course, your rewards are based on your tier. In my alliance, we alternate between the T1 and T2 maps at present, though we're mostly getting T2 rewards.

I'm looking forward to the changes in the next iteration, but it won't help here -- we can reasonably expect that some alliances will alternate near the boundary between different maps, and Kabam's solution seems reasonable given their choice of how to match. (That said -- it way new alliances are placed is really horrible. Last time we started it took two months to reach our actual level. Two months of rolling over alliances that had no hope ... this was before 14.0, so it's not like we were even giving them easy diversity matches.

I do recall the post, but if the map is chosen at random, that affects the placement of our defensive heroes since there are big differences in the nodes. I'm arranging based on a Hard Map since that it what we're showing.

Besides that; I was pretty sure a Kabam mod made a post that showed that specific tiers play specific map levels. I can't find that post since it wasn't in any announcements and it's buried/lost in these forums.

I agree. That is a huge difference and disadvantage arguably for one of the alliances. Tier 7 war maps include bane and tier 8 does not. Tier 7 includes automatic poison and automatic bleed nodes whereas tier 8 includes enhanced bleed or enhanced poison. Hopefully this issue gets resolved.

Greywarden

Any word on the top left mini boss only having one path to reach it? Every other mini boss has 2 portals you can use to get to them, why is the top left any different?

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linux wrote: »

MikeHock wrote: »

linux wrote: »

MikeHock wrote: »

There's a big difference between hard & intermediate maps and it impacts defensive placement a lot. If it says we're playing the hard map that's what we base our defensive set up around.... not that we should be playing the hard map in tier8 for 4* shards.

This just doesn't make any sense. We just did another war in tier8 on the intermediate map. Now we're still in tier8 but play vs a hard map? IMHO this should be consistent and looked at & possibly fixed.... unless there's something I'm not understanding

Kabam Miike previously asserted that when two alliances at different tiers are matched, it will randomly choose the map for one or the other tier. Of course, your rewards are based on your tier. In my alliance, we alternate between the T1 and T2 maps at present, though we're mostly getting T2 rewards.

I'm looking forward to the changes in the next iteration, but it won't help here -- we can reasonably expect that some alliances will alternate near the boundary between different maps, and Kabam's solution seems reasonable given their choice of how to match. (That said -- it way new alliances are placed is really horrible. Last time we started it took two months to reach our actual level. Two months of rolling over alliances that had no hope ... this was before 14.0, so it's not like we were even giving them easy diversity matches.

I do recall the post, but if the map is chosen at random, that affects the placement of our defensive heroes since there are big differences in the nodes. I'm arranging based on a Hard Map since that it what we're showing.

Besides that; I was pretty sure a Kabam mod made a post that showed that specific tiers play specific map levels. I can't find that post since it wasn't in any announcements and it's buried/lost in these forums.

Yes, specific tiers are associated with specific maps. But if you have an alliance at T11 and they get the intermediate map, and they're matched up to an alliance in T12 with the novice map (I"m not sure these are the boundary points, but it's possible to dig up the post if needed) -- then both alliances will get either the novice or the intermediate map, with the choice (according to kabam) at random.

Neither alliance has an advantage; for the T11 alliance, the worst that will happen is that they will see the map they'll get if they lose a few matches (if they get the novice map); and for the T12 alliance, the worst that will happen is they'll see the map they'll get if they win a few matches (if they get the intermediate map).

So long as both alliances get the same nodes, the only real complaint you could make is that you get worse rewards for a slightly harder map. But so long as you explore enough (where enough is much less than 100%), you'll get all the exploration rewards and it's just a question of if you get winner or loser awards.

It seems pretty minor in the scheme of things, and I don't have a better solution unless they're going to fix matching much more broadly.

War rating is a poor way to do matching because it takes a long time to settle, and is easily subject to abuse (e.g. alliance hoping for easy 5* shards, as well as taking far too long for new alliances to reach a rating that makes sense -- leading to very boring and lopsided matches). So if they worked on improving that, and along the way avoided surprises for alliances near the border between different maps -- that'd seem reasonable. But I don't have a problem with the surprises, despite the fact that it sometimes gives us T1 nodes for T2 rewards.

...the only real complaint you could make is that you get worse rewards for a slightly harder map.

Exactly. This happened weeks ago where people in very high tiers were on the intermediate map. That hard map is not "slightly" harder; it's a big boost in difficulty compared to intermediate, IMHO. You have added bleed and poison nodes, Bane, Spite, All or Nothing, Buffet, Masochism, more unblockables, Power Shield.... the list goes on.

It just isn't consistent that we played 3 wars in Tier8 and 2 of them were on the intermediate map and 1 on the hard map.

Tier8 - Intermediate Map (Win)
Tier7 - Hard Map (Win)
Tier6 - Hard Map (Loss)
Tier7 - Hard Map (Loss)
Tier8 - Intermediate Map (Loss)
Tier9 - Intermediate Map (Win)
Tier8 - Hard Map (?)

This content has been removed.

linux wrote: »

MikeHock wrote: »

linux wrote: »

MikeHock wrote: »

linux wrote: »

MikeHock wrote: »

There's a big difference between hard & intermediate maps and it impacts defensive placement a lot. If it says we're playing the hard map that's what we base our defensive set up around.... not that we should be playing the hard map in tier8 for 4* shards.

This just doesn't make any sense. We just did another war in tier8 on the intermediate map. Now we're still in tier8 but play vs a hard map? IMHO this should be consistent and looked at & possibly fixed.... unless there's something I'm not understanding

Kabam Miike previously asserted that when two alliances at different tiers are matched, it will randomly choose the map for one or the other tier. Of course, your rewards are based on your tier. In my alliance, we alternate between the T1 and T2 maps at present, though we're mostly getting T2 rewards.

I'm looking forward to the changes in the next iteration, but it won't help here -- we can reasonably expect that some alliances will alternate near the boundary between different maps, and Kabam's solution seems reasonable given their choice of how to match. (That said -- it way new alliances are placed is really horrible. Last time we started it took two months to reach our actual level. Two months of rolling over alliances that had no hope ... this was before 14.0, so it's not like we were even giving them easy diversity matches.

I do recall the post, but if the map is chosen at random, that affects the placement of our defensive heroes since there are big differences in the nodes. I'm arranging based on a Hard Map since that it what we're showing.

Besides that; I was pretty sure a Kabam mod made a post that showed that specific tiers play specific map levels. I can't find that post since it wasn't in any announcements and it's buried/lost in these forums.

Yes, specific tiers are associated with specific maps. But if you have an alliance at T11 and they get the intermediate map, and they're matched up to an alliance in T12 with the novice map (I"m not sure these are the boundary points, but it's possible to dig up the post if needed) -- then both alliances will get either the novice or the intermediate map, with the choice (according to kabam) at random.

Neither alliance has an advantage; for the T11 alliance, the worst that will happen is that they will see the map they'll get if they lose a few matches (if they get the novice map); and for the T12 alliance, the worst that will happen is they'll see the map they'll get if they win a few matches (if they get the intermediate map).

So long as both alliances get the same nodes, the only real complaint you could make is that you get worse rewards for a slightly harder map. But so long as you explore enough (where enough is much less than 100%), you'll get all the exploration rewards and it's just a question of if you get winner or loser awards.

It seems pretty minor in the scheme of things, and I don't have a better solution unless they're going to fix matching much more broadly.

War rating is a poor way to do matching because it takes a long time to settle, and is easily subject to abuse (e.g. alliance hoping for easy 5* shards, as well as taking far too long for new alliances to reach a rating that makes sense -- leading to very boring and lopsided matches). So if they worked on improving that, and along the way avoided surprises for alliances near the border between different maps -- that'd seem reasonable. But I don't have a problem with the surprises, despite the fact that it sometimes gives us T1 nodes for T2 rewards.

...the only real complaint you could make is that you get worse rewards for a slightly harder map.

Exactly. This happened weeks ago where people in very high tiers were on the intermediate map. That hard map is not "slightly" harder; it's a big boost in difficulty compared to intermediate, IMHO. You have added bleed and poison nodes, Bane, Spite, All or Nothing, Buffet, Masochism, more unblockables, Power Shield.... the list goes on.

It just isn't consistent that we played 3 wars in Tier8 and 2 of them were on the intermediate map and 1 on the hard map.

Tier8 - Intermediate Map (Win)
Tier7 - Hard Map (Win)
Tier6 - Hard Map (Loss)
Tier7 - Hard Map (Loss)
Tier8 - Intermediate Map (Loss)
Tier9 - Intermediate Map (Win)
Tier8 - Hard Map (?)

I assume you're left column (tier) is from your opponents, not your rewards?

Based on http://mcoc-guide.blogspot.com/2017/09/mcoc-aw-update-v150-alliance-war.html , if you're in tier 8 you're on the border between advanced (8-10) and hard (4-7). You should expect to occasionally move up into tier 7 and get the hard map. I realize the hard map is much harder than advanced one, but given that you're close to moving up (or perhaps that was your tier), this seems a more-or-less reasonable compromise.

If you mean to argue that you don't like hard+ AW maps because they have BS nodes ... that's a plausible argument. But it seems different from arguing that you should never be bumped up a small distance to the next bracket for matching.

Thank you. That link is very helpful and shows that tier8 shouldn't be fighting the Hard map, although I know that is based on 15.0. Perhaps my list above might not have been clear (Tier Level - Map Difficulty - Result)

Played Tier8 - Intermediate Map and we won
Played Tier7 - Hard Map and we won....
Tier6 - Hard Map (Loss)
Tier7 - Hard Map (Loss)
Tier8 - Intermediate Map (Loss)
Tier9 - Intermediate Map (Win)
Tier8 - Hard Map? (ended today)

I'm just looking for consistency when fighting in Tier8. 2 Wars were on the intermediate map and this last War was on the hard map.

I do appreciate everyone's time and energy responding to, and trying to explain everything to me.

PaleHaunt

@Kabam Miike There REALLY needs to be an option to downrank now. Even if it's minimal, one 5 star, and four 4 stars... Something... Diversity caused so many of us to waste resources on less worthy champs specifically for AW, and now with you removing the value so quickly, give us the option to take some back. Please.

Karinshi

any update on AW rewards? because they suck
we had easier wars with the same rewards and now we will have harder maps with the same old outdated rewards which don't worth the effort or items we have to put in order to get them!!
in fact, we just have to do one monthly quest and we will get 10k 5shards which are equal to ~15 ((wins)) not to mention the 6* shards
this has to be addressed before AW update
thanks

Rank Down Tickets are not for content. They're for major changes to Champs. Probably worth pointing out that Diversity is not being removed. It's being lowered.

MikeHock wrote: »

linux wrote: »

MikeHock wrote: »

linux wrote: »

MikeHock wrote: »

linux wrote: »

MikeHock wrote: »

There's a big difference between hard & intermediate maps and it impacts defensive placement a lot. If it says we're playing the hard map that's what we base our defensive set up around.... not that we should be playing the hard map in tier8 for 4* shards.

This just doesn't make any sense. We just did another war in tier8 on the intermediate map. Now we're still in tier8 but play vs a hard map? IMHO this should be consistent and looked at & possibly fixed.... unless there's something I'm not understanding

Kabam Miike previously asserted that when two alliances at different tiers are matched, it will randomly choose the map for one or the other tier. Of course, your rewards are based on your tier. In my alliance, we alternate between the T1 and T2 maps at present, though we're mostly getting T2 rewards.

I'm looking forward to the changes in the next iteration, but it won't help here -- we can reasonably expect that some alliances will alternate near the boundary between different maps, and Kabam's solution seems reasonable given their choice of how to match. (That said -- it way new alliances are placed is really horrible. Last time we started it took two months to reach our actual level. Two months of rolling over alliances that had no hope ... this was before 14.0, so it's not like we were even giving them easy diversity matches.

I do recall the post, but if the map is chosen at random, that affects the placement of our defensive heroes since there are big differences in the nodes. I'm arranging based on a Hard Map since that it what we're showing.

Besides that; I was pretty sure a Kabam mod made a post that showed that specific tiers play specific map levels. I can't find that post since it wasn't in any announcements and it's buried/lost in these forums.

Yes, specific tiers are associated with specific maps. But if you have an alliance at T11 and they get the intermediate map, and they're matched up to an alliance in T12 with the novice map (I"m not sure these are the boundary points, but it's possible to dig up the post if needed) -- then both alliances will get either the novice or the intermediate map, with the choice (according to kabam) at random.

Neither alliance has an advantage; for the T11 alliance, the worst that will happen is that they will see the map they'll get if they lose a few matches (if they get the novice map); and for the T12 alliance, the worst that will happen is they'll see the map they'll get if they win a few matches (if they get the intermediate map).

So long as both alliances get the same nodes, the only real complaint you could make is that you get worse rewards for a slightly harder map. But so long as you explore enough (where enough is much less than 100%), you'll get all the exploration rewards and it's just a question of if you get winner or loser awards.

It seems pretty minor in the scheme of things, and I don't have a better solution unless they're going to fix matching much more broadly.

War rating is a poor way to do matching because it takes a long time to settle, and is easily subject to abuse (e.g. alliance hoping for easy 5* shards, as well as taking far too long for new alliances to reach a rating that makes sense -- leading to very boring and lopsided matches). So if they worked on improving that, and along the way avoided surprises for alliances near the border between different maps -- that'd seem reasonable. But I don't have a problem with the surprises, despite the fact that it sometimes gives us T1 nodes for T2 rewards.

...the only real complaint you could make is that you get worse rewards for a slightly harder map.

Exactly. This happened weeks ago where people in very high tiers were on the intermediate map. That hard map is not "slightly" harder; it's a big boost in difficulty compared to intermediate, IMHO. You have added bleed and poison nodes, Bane, Spite, All or Nothing, Buffet, Masochism, more unblockables, Power Shield.... the list goes on.

It just isn't consistent that we played 3 wars in Tier8 and 2 of them were on the intermediate map and 1 on the hard map.

Tier8 - Intermediate Map (Win)
Tier7 - Hard Map (Win)
Tier6 - Hard Map (Loss)
Tier7 - Hard Map (Loss)
Tier8 - Intermediate Map (Loss)
Tier9 - Intermediate Map (Win)
Tier8 - Hard Map (?)

I assume you're left column (tier) is from your opponents, not your rewards?

Based on http://mcoc-guide.blogspot.com/2017/09/mcoc-aw-update-v150-alliance-war.html , if you're in tier 8 you're on the border between advanced (8-10) and hard (4-7). You should expect to occasionally move up into tier 7 and get the hard map. I realize the hard map is much harder than advanced one, but given that you're close to moving up (or perhaps that was your tier), this seems a more-or-less reasonable compromise.

If you mean to argue that you don't like hard+ AW maps because they have BS nodes ... that's a plausible argument. But it seems different from arguing that you should never be bumped up a small distance to the next bracket for matching.

Thank you. That link is very helpful and shows that tier8 shouldn't be fighting the Hard map, although I know that is based on 15.0. Perhaps my list above might not have been clear (Tier Level - Map Difficulty - Result)

Played Tier8 - Intermediate Map and we won
Played Tier7 - Hard Map and we won....
Tier6 - Hard Map (Loss)
Tier7 - Hard Map (Loss)
Tier8 - Intermediate Map (Loss)
Tier9 - Intermediate Map (Win)
Tier8 - Hard Map? (ended today)

I'm just looking for consistency when fighting in Tier8. 2 Wars were on the intermediate map and this last War was on the hard map.

I do appreciate everyone's time and energy responding to, and trying to explain everything to me.

The issue comes up when Matchmaking occurs between two different Tiers. There has to be some way of determining which Map is played. I can understand where you're coming from. There is not much that can be done in that scenario because one side or the other will experience this from time to time. The only thing I can think of is adding the limits to the same Tier as well as War Rating when Matchmaking, however I can see problems with that.

winterthur

MikeHock wrote: »

Here's a breakdown of our last few wars:

Tier8 - Intermediate Map (Win)
Tier7 - Hard Map (Win)
Tier6 - Hard Map (Loss)
Tier7 - Hard Map (Loss)
Tier8 - Intermediate Map (Loss)
Tier9 - Intermediate Map (Win)

Today: Tier8 - Hard Map !?

Last 2 tier8 Wars were on the intermediate Map.
Today in tier8, Hard Map.

Makes no sense.

Is this applicable to Tier 11?
In the 3 Wars fought (including the current; finishing shortly), only the 2nd War has AW boss buffed by miniboss.

Don't seem to find anything clear on it.

winterthur

MikeHock wrote: »

Here's a breakdown of our last few wars:

Tier8 - Intermediate Map (Win)
Tier7 - Hard Map (Win)
Tier6 - Hard Map (Loss)
Tier7 - Hard Map (Loss)
Tier8 - Intermediate Map (Loss)
Tier9 - Intermediate Map (Win)

Today: Tier8 - Hard Map !?

Last 2 tier8 Wars were on the intermediate Map.
Today in tier8, Hard Map.

Makes no sense.

Is this applicable to Tier 11?
In the 3 Wars fought (including the current; finishing shortly), only the 2nd War has AW boss buffed by miniboss.

Don't seem to find anything clear on it.

winterthur

Oops .. double post.

Supa420

Way to promote stacking maps again kabam!! MD, spiders, NCs, and all the cheap champs everywhere again!! Thanks! I guess y’all need more money.

Voluntaris

Supa420 wrote: »

Way to promote stacking maps again kabam!! MD, spiders, NCs, and all the cheap champs everywhere again!! Thanks! I guess y’all need more money.

Yes, way to promote skill and competition in a WAR MODE of MCoC! Thanks!

As for the "more money", the more you practice and get better at the game, the less items you need to use. You can also use glory for potions and earn units via arena.

Supa420

Lol. You’re funny. Where’s the skill when you are killed by degeneration from evading, or losing half health while never being touched. A map full of those, real skillful let me tell you.

Angry_Asian17

Will defenders be hidden?

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