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Interesting DLL Thoughts Re: AW

From his stream today (starting around 30 minute mark):
"It's not that Tier 1 isn't doing enough, it's that Tier 1 just isn't enough people to run a mode for. . . .
We need to find something with War that engages more people. . . .
I strongly prefer the more traditional approach. . . . The broader point is to find a way to bring more people into the AW pipeline as opposed to the current standard which is more: The people at the top have a lot of fun with it and then the vast, vast majority of the playerbase doesn't even place defenders. . . . "
My opinion? I don't really care either way, but it doesn't appear that there are enough tears in the top tiers to sway Kabam to ignore the reality that AW is dead and it needs to change.
https://youtu.be/BvgZF64wWBc?t=1800
"It's not that Tier 1 isn't doing enough, it's that Tier 1 just isn't enough people to run a mode for. . . .
We need to find something with War that engages more people. . . .
I strongly prefer the more traditional approach. . . . The broader point is to find a way to bring more people into the AW pipeline as opposed to the current standard which is more: The people at the top have a lot of fun with it and then the vast, vast majority of the playerbase doesn't even place defenders. . . . "
My opinion? I don't really care either way, but it doesn't appear that there are enough tears in the top tiers to sway Kabam to ignore the reality that AW is dead and it needs to change.

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Comments
I totally understand the need to experiment but I don’t know why it has to be one or the other in this instance.
- AW is expensive, super expensive, either from perspective of resources consumption, or time consumption
- Many people has already pointed out, adjustment of health potion can make the cost reasonable, but nobody from Kabam did this for almost 2 years, it is a shock.
- Reward is really really bad for alliances outside master/P1, even P1 is not good at all. How can you give players the horrible rewards for playing the most expensive game mode?
Solution is easy, I believe I saw many good advices on the forum for many times too- just significantly decrease potion price and increase healing amount, if you say this will decrease revenue of Kabam. Well, killing this game mode would add revenue either right?
- bump the rewards for all tiers, especially for all P/G tiers, however, if a player didn't join enough war (set a high bar, e.g., 9 wars), or didn't do enough fight (36 flights), rewards will be reduced based on percentage. Don't make it zero, just do percentage reduction.
Please remember, top alliances mostly fight for the title, regular alliances fight for rewards.Maybe try to overhaul the rewards system of AW other than just buffing masters Tier-1 rewards every single time?
Put 7* crystal in gold bracket and you'll see lower tier Alliances scatch and claw for a chance to spin that crystal just to open 7* warmachine or something.
Giving one 7* per month to those accounts won't change anything.
Lower tier Alliances just don't bother with it because after the month of playing, all they get is chump rewards.
Don't buff rewards = Gets surprised why people aren't playing? 😦😦
Like the war should have best rewards, it's a month long team content.
So, I do think the game mode has to be changed to some extent, AW is waaay too time consuming for me personally and very tiring if you're the one doing path assignments which is why there's so little engagement and most alliances don't take it seriously. On paper I prefer AW this way with not that many fights but I'll have to actually play before I make up my mind fully, maybe they could do two or three defenders per person instead of just one.
2. New style can be for G1 and below. Also need to bump rewards up.
Seems that would make the most people happy.
It’s against forum rules
2 years later, there has been no update. I don't want to be mean or anything, but for them to continue to dwell in stubborness after so many in the community have spoken is tone deaf and pathetic. The lack of participation is their own fault.
Just look at how Loyalty store resources compare to other stores? Where's the motive for doing AW??
And this new format does absolutely NOTHING to address this discrepancy in reward to effort. All it’s going to do is make war feel like a duller AQ
He should have brought his own popcorn, like you 😉
My read of this situation is that they want more engagement for alliance modes at all levels of progression. Which makes total sense.
What seems odd to me is how they chose this particular design solution for a test. It doesn’t incentivize or even require anything like actual engagement. I did one sub-60 second fight 48 hours ago and haven’t paid a lick of attention AW since.
What’s also odd is how much AQ is not part of the conversation. If they want more allies playing together, for god’s sake, experiment with AQ. Literally no one is emotionally invested in AQ, even if you’re playing at the highest tiers. It’s actually a nice middle ground because it can be collaborative but it’s not nearly as demanding as AW in terms of planning, champ investments, etc. Seems like you could do something with AQ scoring to make it more interesting. Reward people for using no items, or reward them for using less common champs, or lowest fight time, etc. Find a way to influence the scoring and create variability that is tied to something more than a) did you explore the map, and b) what’s your prestige?
It’s just an inert game mode. That should be the place where Kabam plays around and tried new things. But maybe they know they can’t ever earn incremental revenue from AQ and so all the attention and ideas (however misguided) are pouted toward AW…
If you, as Kabam, see a majority of players and alliances not interacting with the game modes as you’d like such as setting your defense or not bothering with Attack - it gives you the sobering conclusion that a change is needed
All alliance members auto join war with defenders placed. No locking of champions from any other mode. Leadership can choose defenders from rosters and move anyone to and from any battleground. Players who do not want to do war not inconvenienced and helpful to alliance. Small reward to acknowledge participation and encourage participation in attack.
Attack side- better solo rewards for wins during season and added for individual war. Bonus "bounties" ie one or two random defenders give extra reward for defeat. Random and different every time and would give an additional engagement.
Increase the amount of energy/decrease cost of energy refill. Easier to find time to do aw. Easier too coordinate.
Lower tiers - use champ switch like incursions.
Ditto on other suggestions on rewards on all but top levels and cost of aw.
Rewards are definitely getting better now that radiance is being added to the rewards but I still think it's way too time consuming.
As for your second comment I'd rather this than 50 defenders though, even if they buffed actual rewards or the loyalty store I still wouldn't play war. Like I said, I had to spend two hours every single war looking at all rosters making sure we had counters for everything and assigning paths and I'm permanently burned out from that lol.