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

Zachchuck88

It ok my maxes out Groot still looks pretty even though he is pretty much useles

DNA3000

WOK wrote: »

Sirnoob2 wrote: »

so a suggestion I have is make two leagues for aw
one league is the competitive aw this is same as current state of war except get rid of defender diversity this allows alliances to go all out and not gimp them

the second league is the more casual league this league has defender diversity for those who want a more downed down aw a cap of champs in to 4 stars no buying items and and item limit that u give everybody at the begining of attack phase also side this league is ment to be more casual and easy the rewards get towned down to match

this set up will help u guys satisfy ur players that want aw to be a challenge and those that want it to be more casual

Although an interesting idea, seperate leagues and different rules to abide by seems to need quite a bit of work in order to implement and run simultaneously/separately.

Not positive if something similar had been suggested before or if it's even doable for that matter, but I just thought about this possibility.

Change the difficulty and map layout as described and dont remove anything that has been in play till now, with just a few minor tweaks to points per/metric maybe.

THEN add in a metric that tabulates points gained/lost for item usage instead of just being a number that has no value other than quantity available.
Each lvl pot, revive, champ boost, class boost what have you all having its own specific point value, because although each is considered a single item, IMO their level of help potency vary greatly.
The ally that uses any and all types of items gets those points deducted from their total and maybe even bonus points awarded to the ally having less points deducted(less significant items used).

I thought this might be a possible middleground for those asking for items being removed completely to better showcase skill and competition and those not so much in favor of removal, but against the coined "wallet wars".

Seemed like a decent enough idea that doesnt seem to need extensive work to put into play....... But I have no idea what actually needs to be done or if it can work like I said. @DNA3000 care to lend some thought?

I don't think it would be hard to implement, but we'd probably be fighting over the item values because that's not something that you can mathematically determine: it is a value judgment as to how many points to deduct for item usage relative to the points to earn on attack bonus.

It is also unclear to me how this solves the problem Kabam is trying to solve. Apparently they don't want alliances to win on diversity points, and they also don't want alliances to win on attack bonus points. If you add another source of points (or point deductions) alliances will probably start winning or losing due to item usage points, which I'm guessing Kabam will also not like and try to "fix." The only way point deductions for item use does what Kabam is saying they want to do (which I still find irrational, but setting that aside) is if the item usage deductions are so large and so punitive that no competitive alliance would ever risk using any items during seasonal wars. Which is almost functionally identical to an item ban.

gohard123

oak wrote: »

Lol maybe on x-mass! If we're not naughty

Even if you are naughty, you'd still get a visit from Sump'n Claus

(Hopefully someone recognises that joke)

gohard123

One thing I don't think anyone has pointed out is the participation rewards. You guys say that 100% shouldn't be a common occurrence but you guys have participation rewards at 95% exploration. That is honestly ridiculous IMO, you are basically screwing the people who wont be able to 95% explore the much more difficult map, almost a triple whammy for the losing alliance (war loss, item use and then tiny participation rewards at the end)

MrVamps07

Hey Kabam Mike? Hopefully you should be watchful to those people who use mod in game. My alliance should be in Silver 2 but in the end of season, we demoted to silver 3 due to a player who came in to our alliance whom is using a mod. Alliance should not be affected but only the player. Appreciated much if you will have a time to reconsider my idea.

Voluntaris

The idea that alliances should not 100% the AW map regularly is a bad one in my opinion. As most top end alliances are going to push to 100% no matter how insanely hard you make the map, it's going to result in even more stress/frustration/and more uber expensive item use.

Old school AW which focused more on defender kills worked so much better, as it was much more focused on skill rather than pay power.

Plusestop108

AW rating adjustment need to change, we can’t keep going the way its running, anyone who break your TOS should be automatically kick not receiving countless message on rating adjustment.

This can destroy alliance and friendship if this is still on going.

Fixxx

As Defender Diversity will no longer be removed, can it function now as a true tie-breaker?

That is, it only comes to play when both alliances have an equal total number of points from clears, exploration, attack bonus, and defenders remaining. That would make it the tie-breaker it has long been touted to be

gohard123

Fixxx wrote: »

As Defender Diversity will no longer be removed, can it function now as a true tie-breaker?

That is, it only comes to play when both alliances have an equal total number of points from clears, exploration, attack bonus, and defenders remaining. That would make it the tie-breaker it has long been touted to be

That would mean non-diverse defences would always win.

blindside493

Voluntaris wrote: »

The idea that alliances should not 100% the AW map regularly is a bad one in my opinion. As most top end alliances are going to push to 100% no matter how insanely hard you make the map, it's going to result in even more stress/frustration/and more uber expensive item use.

Old school AW which focused more on defender kills worked so much better, as it was much more focused on skill rather than pay power.

This is so true. This along with a reduced item use in AW would certainly aid in preventing 100% the map. Players wouldnt be able to simple pay their way to 100%. The penalty from deaths would actually mean something. But They prefer the stress inducing version, in which everyone pays to 100% no matter how hard they make the map.

DNA3000

Voluntaris wrote: »

The idea that alliances should not 100% the AW map regularly is a bad one in my opinion. As most top end alliances are going to push to 100% no matter how insanely hard you make the map, it's going to result in even more stress/frustration/and more uber expensive item use.

Old school AW which focused more on defender kills worked so much better, as it was much more focused on skill rather than pay power.

I'm not in a top tier alliance and my own alliance doesn't complete 100% every war, but I still personally feel enormous pressure to complete my paths every single war. The problem is the map design: you have paths with widely varying difficulty from node to node, and you have links that buff between paths. So if I don't finish, I'm making it difficult for other people to finish, and I'm giving up all the points further down my path, and the next node I'm giving up is very likely to be a node I could finish, if only I get past the current node.

It is simply irrational to expect players to give up on exploration, because it is never a good idea to do that in general.

And it is also nonsensical for Kabam to care about players giving up on a node, which was the justification for removing defender kill points, then turn around and also say they don't want maps to explore 100%. The combination of the two borders on sadistic game design: you want to encourage players to attack, and you want to design the maps so that they don't succeed. Allowing players to reach the end of their paths and judging them based on how well they did so is psychologically far less antagonistic. If you get to the end but you died twice, that's the best you could do. It is far easier to live with than if you give up in the middle of the path, because that's very obviously not the best you could have done.

Fixxx

gohard123 wrote: »

Fixxx wrote: »

As Defender Diversity will no longer be removed, can it function now as a true tie-breaker?

That is, it only comes to play when both alliances have an equal total number of points from clears, exploration, attack bonus, and defenders remaining. That would make it the tie-breaker it has long been touted to be

That would mean non-diverse defences would always win.

That means they should stop calling it a tie-breaker. It's all semantics at this point, but for as long as they refer to it as that and it doesn't do the job of a Kabam-defined tie-breaker, it's always in the greatest danger of being removed. It should have no other expected purpose but as another criteria like attack bonus, etc

tl;dr: Stop calling defender diversity a tie-breaker. It is not

DNA3000

Fixxx wrote: »

gohard123 wrote: »

Fixxx wrote: »

As Defender Diversity will no longer be removed, can it function now as a true tie-breaker?

That is, it only comes to play when both alliances have an equal total number of points from clears, exploration, attack bonus, and defenders remaining. That would make it the tie-breaker it has long been touted to be

That would mean non-diverse defences would always win.

That means they should stop calling it a tie-breaker. It's all semantics at this point, but for as long as they refer to it as that and it doesn't do the job of a Kabam-defined tie-breaker, it's always in the greatest danger of being removed. It should have no other expected purpose but as another criteria like attack bonus, etc

tl;dr: Stop calling defender diversity a tie-breaker. It is not

It actually isn't just semantics: calling defender diversity points a "tie breaker" creates actual problems I warned about back when they were first introduced. It implies that they shouldn't ordinarily matter: that most of the time they shouldn't factor into the result of the war. After all, most games do not execute tie breakers. This mental error is exhibited directly by Kabam: they keep saying that defender diversity points are intended to function as a tie breaker, but they are deciding too many wars. That's a nonsensical statement on its face, but the reason it is nonsensical is because defender diversity points aren't tie breakers.

Points are fungible. That means when you look at a score like 147,000, there's no way to actually say which set of points is more important than any other. No set of points is the set that "reaches" 147,000. They all do collectively. But when you decide arbitrarily to call one specific set of points a "tie breaker" you're giving those points special significance, and ironically in two logically incompatible but psychologically problematic ways. If two alliances end up scoring 147,000 and 148,000, and the difference in diversity points is 1200, then *because* you call them "tie breakers" you naturally tend to conclude that they decided the war. After all, those points "broke the tie." And yet we score those points first. Diversity points are set the moment you set your defense, before the war even starts.

So calling them tie breakers when they aren't actually tie breakers creates the problem that some people - both Kabam developers and some players - simultaneously count diversity points *last* and say they decided the war, and *first* and also say that the war was decided before it was fought. Which of course is "bad" and has to be "fixed."

I've been saying since 14.1 we shouldn't call defender diversity points tie breakers, because doing so is not just literally wrong, that literally wrong idea creates other problems. It generates an impossible problem for diversity points to solve. As long as that is true, Kabam will keep returning to defender diversity and either radically altering it or attempting to remove it completely, only to add it back when they discover that removing them creates larger problems. There's no way out of this through iteration, until Kabam starts thinking about what their scoring system actually does, not what they want it to do to the players.

shadow_lurker22

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.

So the wars are going to be more difficult and you decrease the rewards how is that logical at all?

shadow_lurker22

shadow_lurker22 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.

So the wars are going to be more difficult and you decrease the rewards how is that logical at all?

Nevermind the season is shorter bit still why half the rewards?

Johndeeper

How about providing us with a few potions,
And some revives free of charge and let us spend units or glory on ranking up champs ao we can continue to grow? I’m sick of your money grab ways and all
That matters is how much we can spend. This next season will be my last and final if this
Doesn’t become a normal fun game.

Fixxx

DNA3000 wrote: »

Fixxx wrote: »

gohard123 wrote: »

Fixxx wrote: »

As Defender Diversity will no longer be removed, can it function now as a true tie-breaker?

That is, it only comes to play when both alliances have an equal total number of points from clears, exploration, attack bonus, and defenders remaining. That would make it the tie-breaker it has long been touted to be

That would mean non-diverse defences would always win.

That means they should stop calling it a tie-breaker. It's all semantics at this point, but for as long as they refer to it as that and it doesn't do the job of a Kabam-defined tie-breaker, it's always in the greatest danger of being removed. It should have no other expected purpose but as another criteria like attack bonus, etc

tl;dr: Stop calling defender diversity a tie-breaker. It is not

If two alliances end up scoring 147,000 and 148,000, and the difference in diversity points is 1200, then *because* you call them "tie breakers" you naturally tend to conclude that they decided the war. After all, those points "broke the tie." And yet we score those points first. Diversity points are set the moment you set your defense, before the war even starts.

So calling them tie breakers when they aren't actually tie breakers creates the problem that some people - both Kabam developers and some players - simultaneously count diversity points *last* and say they decided the war, and *first* and also say that the war was decided before it was fought. Which of course is "bad" and has to be "fixed."

I've been saying since 14.1 we shouldn't call defender diversity points tie breakers, because doing so is not just literally wrong, that literally wrong idea creates other problems. It generates an impossible problem for diversity points to solve. As long as that is true, Kabam will keep returning to defender diversity and either radically altering it or attempting to remove it completely, only to add it back when they discover that removing them creates larger problems. There's no way out of this through iteration, until Kabam starts thinking about what their scoring system actually does, not what they want it to do to the players.

You explained my problem with defender diversity as tie-breaker much better than I ever could

The_One

Has Kabam explained the new nodes anywhere yet?

Bassanio

Any update of explanation of there nodes?

Counter Tactics

Stupefy

Aspect of Evolution

Feats of Power

@Kabam Miike

Amonthir

Counter Tactics - The Defender's Attack power grows with each hit in your combo meter, by a fair amount, too.
Stupefy - Increases Stun duration
Aspect of Evolution - Each time Defender fills a bar of power, gain a permanent 5% boost to most stats, like Attack, Armor, Ability Accuracy, etc.
Feats of Power - At one bar of power, Defender gains Fury. At 2, Precision (I think), at 3, Cruelty. I believe they stack, unlike how Angela works.

KoperBoy

Drummer16 wrote: »

Yea, make more enticing offers that appeal to the actual semi-competitive to hardcore whale players, and you will see your revenue go up and up. It's not really fair to make the people that supported you guys until now have to deal with increased difficulty so that they can "foot the bill" to make up for any revenue losses via potion and revive purchases.

There are so many things that need to be changed about this game, and I don't feel like a prioritized list would be that hard to come up with.

I was really excited to see diversity was being removed, and since there was a level up event at the time of the announcement, myself along with many others in my alliance started upgrading new heroes. It really grinds my gears that 1) we never wanted diversity in the first place so people ranked up bad champs, despite the 1000s of threads protesting diversity being added 2) they say that diversity is being removed and a day later are like "oh, just kidding!" so people who couldn't rank up duplicate champs in their BGs now just did and can't use them now 3) the old AW system was WAY better than this and we should have just stuck to the original AW map and scoring rules, and kabam could have simply adjusted and increased the node difficulty and increased the rewards as needed without taking players though this disastrous journey.

It was just so ironic to see kabam's first post about why diversity was bad that outlined all the exact original complaints that they ignored when diversity was added like "war victors are decided when the matchup happens" and "it's not a tie breaker, you have to use it" and "all strategy is basically gone from AW because we have to place easy, trash defenders".

The problem with making offers better is people will finish Act 5, LOL and AQ map 5/6 too easily. No challenge means no interest in the game. Basically Kabam has to slow down the progression of top players so they spend as much time as possible in the game.

Imagine if tomorrow's offer is $30 for a 5* awakening gem and another offer for $30 that contains rank up materials to rank up a 5* from rank 4 to rank 5. Kabam would see a massive spike in sales that day, but...those offers would make players' roster much better and they would have spend less potions in end-game content. In the end, Kabam would have to up the difficulty of future content to match better rosters and we would be at same point we are now.

Riegel

@Kabam Miike

Can we get the +/- rating of win/loss removed?
Can we get the defender name removed from war screen so everyone doesn't have to change their name to lllllllllllllllll?

Grub

@Kabam Miike @Kabam Vydious

You guys really need to look into this nonsense with barcode names. Clearly this isn’t in the “spirit of the game.” Lucky enough, there’s a simple fix - hide player names on the war map.

You also haven’t addressed matchmaking.

Captain_Kandice

With the new iPhone overheating issues will there be a patch out before the new season starts?

unknown

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Autocepticon

I agree with that the idea that 100% should not be common is a poor decision. It leads to being pushed with harder nodes every season while the stress of being expected to finish your path remains which is leading more and more people to retire because this is a game and they are supposed to be fun. Only so much stress people can handle from something that is supposed to be fun.

But on the changes that appear to be staying, the new miniboss nodes should not have links of any kind. It's one thing to not want us to 100% but at least allow us to strategically avoid certain mini bosses early on if we deem it not worth the items or effort. The way it is now if the mini boss on 27 or 31 prove too difficult it locks up the whole side that mini is on and the entire center of the map. That has given these new boss nodes total control over progression.

This would still give Kabam it's desired lack of constant 100% but give the alliance an ability to strategize as it saw fit to accomplish as much exploration and still a chance to take a boss down. Though as I said I still believe having deaths be the determining factor and not exploration was a much better system

Jingo

I fully agree on dropping the links. Especially for the second tier of war that this has been added too as just blocks whole progress. Somebody stuck on a KG or IMIW on one side blocks the middle for us normal players in tier 4 where this has appeared.

Can see why you want this say tier 1-2 but lower than that is just too punishing. Drop the links so we can work round it!

Raganator

Serious question: Why would you create a node (new node 27) that punishes players for fighting well? If you want to include counter tactics, I would suggest the following: (1) don't put it on a stun immune node (blocking and parrying are used to bait heavies and specials - not on this node), (2) add special 1 bias so it is easier to bait specials, or (3) [what should happen] is the increased attack only counts on landed hits (not on blocked or parried hits).

Tensio

These news hard minibosses were totally unnecessary. More item use and kabam didn’t make any movement to help us. Thank you. Another ally that will skip this movement. No item use COMMUNITY

unknown

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