Alliance Wars Season 3 Discussion Thread

Summoners! We've just posted a list of Adjustments coming to Alliance Wars Season 3. Check out the post here. You've probably got questions, so ask away!

Remember, Season 3 starts on July 11th!

UPDATE: Summoners,

As many of you have reported, we are currently experiencing some unexpected hardware and software issues. This is causing many of you to experience limited access to the game, as well as sub par performance in game.

While we continue to investigate the issues and identify solutions, we will be delaying the start of Alliance Wars Season 3.

At this time, we do not have a timeline for when we will be launching Season 3, but want to ensure that we have time to work to resolve any interactions that are causing problems on iOS devices before starting the next competitive season.

We apologize for the delay, and appreciate your patience. We will update you all as soon as we have more information on these issues.

Comments

Hello69

Well a lot of people think the flip flopping is not good and it’s coming down to be a 12.0 problem Lol its unfair that we rank for diversity and now it’s only gunna be a certain few champs on the board again..... diggtydave is right the lack of communication sucks and a 2 week notice stinks. Leave diversity and make harder nodes .

The_Milk_Man

Rank down tickets.... all I have to say...

BenLucas

just make sensible changes, instead of going nuclear....

Tmm1224

You have to have sense to make senseable changes!!

Rockon

i agree with kabam wanting to make money, kabam is a business, but every month if it switches back and forth and we as the most of the player base cannot go back and forth with decision plus not having the topest notchest champs at the time due to we have to wait another 2 years to maybe get 2014 mid tier champs. what do those players do?

Salvatore

@Kabam Miike Miike you should give us a rankdown tickets a lot of summomers rank up for diversity

Dangerous_Ghang

I respect your decision on removing diversity, even though it added some strategic factors that some of my friends still enjoyed playing with.

However, due to it, many of us have brought up champs that we would never have thought of bringing up before, such as Iron Patriot, Ant-man, Simby Spidey, War Machine, the kind of champs who are not god Tier defenders, but can sometimes provide favorable variables with the help of certain nodes.

We did not just bring them up to 5/50 but also to 4/55 just for the sake of meeting both better defense AND higher diversity, spending a bunch of Gold, Catalysts, Awakening Gems and Signature Ability Stones, which we would have spent otherwise, if Kabam never had introduced diversity in the first hand. (No need to mention that some of us even decided to spend cash during the procedure.)

I am sure that this is not a limited case of me and my friends, but one that represents the majority of us, who kept playing AWs under the system THAT KABAM HAS INVENTED.

THEREFORE, I CORDIALLY SUGGEST AND STRONGLY REQUEST THAT KABAM AT LEAST RELEASE ENOUGH RANK DOWN TICKETS WHICH PROVIDE NOT JUST THE CATALYSTS BUT ALSO THE GOLD AND ISOS THAT WE SPENT WHEN BRINGING UP OUR 2ND AND 3RD TIER CHAMPS, SO THAT WE CAN ADJUST OUR ROSTER ACCORDINGLY TO YOUR NEW SYSTEM.

Please remember that it never was the community, who suggested to bring in diversity, but Kabam yourself, so we also expect Kabam to show some responsible actions to compensate our about-to-become-meaningless-efforts. Thank you.

Plantesan

Kabam Miike wrote: »

ASV27 wrote: »

Kabam Miike wrote: »

ASV27 wrote: »

like the shorter season but the price to complete the maps just quadrupled. No more free fights and harder nodes.

So, with the exception of those Nodes on Challenger and Expert that we mentioned, we haven't made any other nodes harder. The new Nodes are meant to make things more difficult, but will also be visible from the get go, so Attackers are able to bring in champions to specifically counter whatever Champion they see there.

Removing diversity is much more important than the new nodes. There's gonna be 10+ IMIWs and Dorms on every map. I get why you did it, but it just stinks for the players.

I don't think anybody wants to place 10 Dormammu on a Map anymore... The Meta has shifted quite a bit since Diversity was introduced, and some of the former best Defenders have met their match now. Others may seem difficult right now, but Players have already started to find the counters needed for them! This will continue to happen in cycles, because that's just the nature of a game like this!

Doesn’t change those teams that will still place those high-end defenders to throw people off.

Taking away diversity is a swift kick to everyone’s lower regions, due to your superiors figuratively holding us over a barrel pushing for diversity for so long. Why not keep diversity and drop the defender classes?

DNA3000

SubTypical wrote: »

There's plenty that could be done if the intent is to NOT complete 100%.

For the top of the top, no. That's bordering on pointless. Setting aside unscrupulous conduct, the top of the top is the top of the top because they are willing to do anything to reach the top. They shoot for 100% because they don't want to lose to someone doing 99%. You cannot discourage 100% by making it difficult, because no matter how difficult it is the top of the top are going to shoot for it and hit it. You can only eliminate 100% from the top of the top by making it impossible, literally, mathematically impossible.

Consider dungeons. Suppose you wanted to make it so people only "rarely" reached the end of map 6. How long should you make it? You could make it ten thousand rooms long and no one would 100% it, but then no one would ever complete it. But if you wanted to set the maximum room count to something only "rarely" reached, what's the correct maximum room count? Twelve? Fifteen? How do you pick a number reachable, but not really? And whatever number you pick, won't the players deliberately get better with each week until they could reach it, if the rewards for doing so were high enough?

Trying to pick the perfect difficulty level that just balances the capabilities of the top tier alliances so they "rarely" complete 100% is simply impossible. No game developer in the universe is that good. That's like trying to make every single champion in the game equally valuable to every player. It is far, far, far easier to distinguish alliances by style points than by pass/fail completion of the map, such as with attack bonus.

And as basically impossible as this task is, Kabam does things to make it even more difficult. The maps have buffing links. That means any alliance that opts out of trying for 100% is often not just passing up on a node, they are passing up on all the links downstream from that path. That increases the probability that *another* path also doesn't get completed. It is possible to clear all the links and clear all the bosses and still leave some paths unexplored, but it is far less likely an alliance will be in a position to decide to do this even if they wanted to, because dependencies amplify the penalty for failing to complete anything.

Honestly, I've thought for a long time, going back before the 14.0 changes, that Kabam has this backwards. They shouldn't skew the points towards 100% exploration, they should do the opposite. Put a bunch of paths on the map that all lead to the boss and all buff the boss. Each link adds points to the boss. So the more links up when the boss goes down, the more points you get. You make more points for defeating the boss *early*, while nodes are still up. This encourages alliances to deliberately do the map the "hard" way to outscore their opponent, with the risk that every defeat costs them points so you can't just rush the boss for free. You have to decide when to make the attempt.

Lower alliances won't bother: they will clear the map to make the fights as easy as possible. But higher alliances could attempt to use stronger rosters and higher skilled players to score more points in proportion to their strength. You could still award points for exploration, so the best alliances would both complete 100% *and* get a lot of boss bonus points for clearing the bosses while links were still up. Two alliances that finish with 100% could still have very different point totals and the stronger alliance executing the best strategy would still win even with full map clears.

ctp1223

So diversity is still a thing right? @Kabam Miike

Goom

Not sure if this was covered , but with season rewards being cut in half , how does the 1 T4Cc crystal work . Will that be cut in half as well ? Do we get the shard crystals instead ?

Vale84

TL/DR:

1)Kabam can change rules at whim.

2)Players following given rules can't adapt to them cause they invested resources they won't give back and that takes 1 to 2 years to build back.

3)You can cover Kabam's lacking sense of fair play by spending more money to make up for progression you didn't lose.

And you call it a game. Interesting.

Bill0927

So wait now the point of the game is NOT to 100% maps that’s news to me. Is the real reason that people were 100% maps with out spending $$$ cause that’s what it seems like the goal has always been to 100% aw aq quest. That is the point of this clown fiesta of a video game right?

Goom

Kabam needs to hire @GroundedWisdom , he answers more stuff then the mods. Even tho he never sides against Kabam , he at least is giving a civil answer.
(Hard to type that last sentence without laughing ) But it’s true

rahul3038

RDT's pleaseeeee!!!!

Hulksmasshh

Kabam Miike wrote: »

NevvB wrote: »

So you made the nodes harder, any changes in rewards?

The rewards have not changed (aside from Season rewards being halved to match the change in length). This is because Alliances were still finding these Maps far too easy. The goal of these changes is to put an end to the near 100% of wars ending in 100% Exploration.

@Kabam Miike By design, Alliance War maps are meant to be 100% cleared. Whether that was the intention or not, the metric of how many alliances are 100% clearing the map is a poor one to use. There’s only 2 outcomes that can happen to each node, you either clear the node or you item-out trying to. Those are 2 polarizing outcomes, with the latter being the worst case scenario for the player and the scrutiny of their alliance. If the latter isn’t happening as much as you’d guys like, you shouldn’t be pondering ways to make it happen more often. You should be looking at how many deaths/items/boosts were involved along the way and using that as your metric for how ‘difficult’ alliance war maps really were.

Just because alliances are clearing the map 100%, doesn’t mean the map wasn’t difficult. The alliance that clears the map in less deaths wins the war, that’s how alliance war should be played. It sounds like that the developer’s initial intentions were whoever can explore the map furthest will win the war, but when applied to the game it doesn’t work out that way. After this new
change, you’ll probably find the same ratio with alliances still 100% clearing the map but with way more deaths/items/boost usage. In that scenario I hope you don’t use the “100% clear” metric again because it’s not indicative of the actual difficulty in alliance war.

Damonm790

When will we be receiving our rank down tickets?

cronicmove

Kabam, as a business owner, I understand making changes to increase your overall profits, but I feel you have been on a very slippery slope with every change made within the past year.

When 12.0 was released there was a tremendous backlash from the community, and Kabam apologized for not including us and how we would be affected in the decision-making process. After today, I’m not sure if Kabam will ever care.

Aside from two beta tests, which I feel they would have made the changes regardless of our thoughts, I have seen no discussions with the players on any plans or considerations.

Every change has felt as if they are trying to reach deeper and deeper into our wallets, with no remorse on how much the change will negatively impact the players. Kabam really did influence everyone to spend (waste) resources on inferior champions in order to run a decent and diverse AW defense. When mentioned by numerus players in this post the response from @Kabam Miike was essentially “you can still use all your old defenders, so why should we give out any compensation?” Would you enjoy spending your own hard-earned money that was guaranteed to last for years and then when it stopped working after a few months be told by the seller to just get over it?

The feature crystal change, increase in AQ difficulty, little to no punishment for collusion and piloting, and now an increase in AW difficulty with no increase in rewards; everything feels like a milking to me. I’m not screaming for RDT and really have no personal use for them, however I don’t like the path the company is heading down and I hope they don’t over reach and end up losing everything.

Keonex

next kabam will remove lvl 4 potions from Glory store as they have found tht was a bug where the potions were actually meant to be lvl1 for 2000 Glory a piece not the actual cost they have now

Palanthrax

Another perfect example of why I spend less and less time in the game, and my financial investment now goes to SWGOH instead. If the new AW season requires me to spend, I’ll drop a tier - I’m not dancing to Kabam’s tune anymore.

Every update looks more and more desperate, people aren’t spending because of brazen greed-fuelled decisions like this one.

World Eater

Diversity removed, lol! What happened to all those lofty goals when they revamped AW with a new map and point system?

Can we go back to the AW map for season 1, with updated nodes, so 98%-100% exploration isn't the norm?

Mhykke

If the maps were never intended to be 100% completed, they would’ve had more than 10 paths, and wouldn’t have linked nodes to clear adjacent paths.

I don’t believe it’s coincidence, or that the people at Kabam are incompetent to the point that they wouldn’t realize that having 9 paths basically implies an expectation that everyone clear a path and someone can back up.

The communication by Kabam here just strikes me as completely disingenuous. Kabam is a business and they need to turn a profit, which is all fine. Because of that fact, I don’t believe for a second there haven’t been discussions on how to maximize purchases by the consumers. Having almost 1 path per person, thereby creating peer pressure in order to finish one’s path isn’t a coincidence. I don’t believe Kabam just lucked out and stumbled into the present situation. And again, that’s fine, and actually a brilliant way to try and maximize revenue.

My issue with the communication here is that Kabam tries to proclaim that maps weren’t intended to be completed 100%. I’m sorry, I’m not buying that for a second. These maps were created specifically for people to be expected by their alliances to clear to a mini boss.

RetroRocks

Feels like a real cheap shot.
You’ve spent all your cats and cash getting a ranked diverse squad, so now chuck em all out , instead drop big dollars buying crystals to get these new badass defenders were dropping into the game.
Oh, and you’ve got half the time to get your 5 wars in , so you’ll have to fight to play if you run only 2BGs, so you better be up for dropping big cash in potions to make sure you earn a spot!
Oh yeah, and the maps are way harder, we know you’ll still 100% it and drop massive cash to do it, well either that or give up cos you will have lost,... we just want you to spend way more completing the map..... cmon guys, cough up some cash to keep playing your “fun” wars.

Humpf, don’t like any of this personally. Rooting out the last of the players that want to take the game casually.

Shorter seasons are good, a revamped map with more path crossing for strategy changes , less overall paths, less linked nodes, more fights per 5 energy, more defenders placed , less irritating no skill nodes (yes I mean you buffet) would all have been a much more fun solution. AW is complicated, messy, slow, repetitive and boring, I would have liked a huge streamlineing of the process, and more actual fun fights per log in rather than these slap dash revenue increase based alternations.
They missed the mark big style, I’m sadly after 3 years rapidly losing interest in this game.

For instance this really grinds my gears....they beta MD changes now..... 2 years after it was actually required, all because they’ve finally made unavoidable damage by other means a norm of the game, players don’t even kick up a stink about it anymore, they broke our resolve long ago, so they don’t need it as a money making defender capability anymore, what an absolute shambles.

Nightwing2380

NO ONE in the community is on your side kabam. Get a grip of this game or everyone will just got to marvel strike force because they are actually listening to the community and making changes on what we want.

Goom

Solution , have different modes for AW , one where diversity matters , one where it don’t , one where if you place Cosmics champs you get bonus points ect. This would eliminate the rank down tickets issue

Kbugii

Guys they said diversity may come back at some point. For now those of us that ranked diversity champs and fell even further behind in the game get to feel what it was like for Loki when Dr Strange had him falling in oblivion for that 1/2hr.

Goom

They can alternate through out the year

BrutalMira

Removing diversity is good but before season 1 you introduced the diversity and thats we rank up those easy to defeat champ to comply with diversity..,,can we expect a rank down tickets to rank up the best defenders in AW?

BenLucas

I feel like LOki after meeting the Hulk. Slam, slam, slam. “Puny God”

BrutalMira

Please increased also the fragments on season war crystals after we finished season and rewarded by small fragments of T2 alpha and T5 basic