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

Doofinator

I realize this will likely get drowned out in the ranting but I’ll toss it out there anyway. I think when the furor died down over diversity the larger and worse point got missed. Kabam doesn’t think people should complete war maps. They claim that’s not fun. The obvious inference is that failure and iteming out, is fun. This would be “more” fun in their eyes if the # of deaths was less of a factor by alliances trying to perform flawlessly and keep their deaths down and better served by becoming more an exercise in who is willing to spend to get the furtherst in the map. This is a selfish and greedy step at the expense of ACTUAL fun and competition. Dropping diversity was just a major step towards that goal. Adding the new mini bosses was the next step. What people fail to realize is they still plan to push this insanely greedy and game killing policy down our throats. Diversity just isn’t currently part of that plan. I’m in a plat 1 alliance. A few people threatened to quit over diversity. Then the new map dropped. 3 people have not just threatened but have actually quit. They’re tired of it and can see the writing on the wall. Honestly, I get it. I’m almost there myself. For the life of me I can’t comprehend why Kabam is trying to suck all the fun out of the game. I’m not dumb, I know they have to make money. But forcing it down people’s throats and sucking all the fun out of it while increasing pressure and grind is the worst long term business strategy on the planet. They’d make more money focusing on making it fun. 200 people’s $10 is worth more than one whale/addict’s $1000. What they fail to see is they’re losing the whales and the general public with horrible decisions like this.

Raganator

Doofinator wrote: »

I realize this will likely get drowned out in the ranting but I’ll toss it out there anyway. I think when the furor died down over diversity the larger and worse point got missed. Kabam doesn’t think people should complete war maps. They claim that’s not fun. The obvious inference is that failure and iteming out, is fun. This would be “more” fun in their eyes if the # of deaths was less of a factor by alliances trying to perform flawlessly and keep their deaths down and better served by becoming more an exercise in who is willing to spend to get the furtherst in the map. This is a selfish and greedy step at the expense of ACTUAL fun and competition. Dropping diversity was just a major step towards that goal. Adding the new mini bosses was the next step. What people fail to realize is they still plan to push this insanely greedy and game killing policy down our throats. Diversity just isn’t currently part of that plan. I’m in a plat 1 alliance. A few people threatened to quit over diversity. Then the new map dropped. 3 people have not just threatened but have actually quit. They’re tired of it and can see the writing on the wall. Honestly, I get it. I’m almost there myself. For the life of me I can’t comprehend why Kabam is trying to suck all the fun out of the game. I’m not dumb, I know they have to make money. But forcing it down people’s throats and sucking all the fun out of it while increasing pressure and grind is the worst long term business strategy on the planet. They’d make more money focusing on making it fun. 200 people’s $10 is worth more than one whale/addict’s $1000. What they fail to see is they’re losing the whales and the general public with horrible decisions like this.

Agree with all of this. The community was too distracted by the diversity issue that we have failed to fight against the bigger issue. Kabam views this as "we gave you what you wanted"!!! Doesn't fix the fundamental issue.

Blackhawkbill

The new mini boss nodes are absolutely rediculous and unnecessary. It’s VERY clear that that warring, moreso than ever, is aimed at item use!! PAY......TO......WIN

Node 27 is almost offensive considering the auto evade bug still exists. Dismay node is BS because everyone will put Domino there because she still has a block break issue....

I have NEVER seen a company try and suck every ounce of fun out of their game ever in my life. There are SOOOO many ways to make war fun and to put everyone on a “level” enough playing field. But greed is blinding and you’re losing players in droves....great job development team!!

DNA3000

Raganator wrote: »

Doofinator wrote: »

I realize this will likely get drowned out in the ranting but I’ll toss it out there anyway. I think when the furor died down over diversity the larger and worse point got missed. Kabam doesn’t think people should complete war maps. They claim that’s not fun. The obvious inference is that failure and iteming out, is fun. This would be “more” fun in their eyes if the # of deaths was less of a factor by alliances trying to perform flawlessly and keep their deaths down and better served by becoming more an exercise in who is willing to spend to get the furtherst in the map. This is a selfish and greedy step at the expense of ACTUAL fun and competition. Dropping diversity was just a major step towards that goal. Adding the new mini bosses was the next step. What people fail to realize is they still plan to push this insanely greedy and game killing policy down our throats. Diversity just isn’t currently part of that plan. I’m in a plat 1 alliance. A few people threatened to quit over diversity. Then the new map dropped. 3 people have not just threatened but have actually quit. They’re tired of it and can see the writing on the wall. Honestly, I get it. I’m almost there myself. For the life of me I can’t comprehend why Kabam is trying to suck all the fun out of the game. I’m not dumb, I know they have to make money. But forcing it down people’s throats and sucking all the fun out of it while increasing pressure and grind is the worst long term business strategy on the planet. They’d make more money focusing on making it fun. 200 people’s $10 is worth more than one whale/addict’s $1000. What they fail to see is they’re losing the whales and the general public with horrible decisions like this.

Agree with all of this. The community was too distracted by the diversity issue that we have failed to fight against the bigger issue. Kabam views this as "we gave you what you wanted"!!! Doesn't fix the fundamental issue.

I think players are a little too quick to blame greed for everything. It is easy, but it also makes it impossible to tackle the actual root cause of the problem. The problem isn't that Kabam is trying to get players to spend more money. Some things they do look like that, but others don't. And Kabam isn't a bunch of monetization geniuses playing a long game there. The real problem is that someone at Kabam has "vision sickness" and is trying to socially engineer wars to be fought in a very specific way, and that way is contrary to logical competition. So the players are never going to cooperate, and Kabam will keep trying to exert increasing pressure to force the players to conform.

Consider: why add defender diversity? It actually made alliances place weaker defenses than they could have, which reduced spending. The argument was that it did that but forced players to spend money to rank up diversity defenders, but really every change can be looked at that way. All changes cause the players to respond by changing themselves, which always can involve expense.

The key to understanding Kabam is to figure out what they mean when they say defender diversity points are "tie breakers." They aren't. But I believe what Kabam is actually thinking is that they were intended to be "tie-avoiders." Diversity points make it more difficult for a war to end in a tie. But I think Kabam believed players would use diversity points in a very specific way, and the players didn't cooperate. They thought players would understand that the goal was to stop the other side, and the way to do that was to place the strongest possible defenders, but placing the strongest possible defenders would cost diversity points, so the goal would then become to place the strongest *necessary* defense that would stop the other side, while keeping the most diversity points possible.

Of course no one will do that, because that's illogical. It is strategically unsound to try to make that calculation. Instead players first realized that diversity points were so high the correct strategy was to place the most diverse defense possible. And then when diversity points were lowered, nodes buffed, and attack bonus added, the correct strategy slowly shifted towards hybrid defenses which placed selected defenders for strength on critical nodes and a diverse defense elsewhere.

This is still not what they wanted, so they are continuing to muck with it. (Attempting to) Removing defender diversity while keeping attacker bonus made me realize that why I thought attacker bonus was added and why it was actually added were different. I thought it was to add a skill-path to winning wars. Top tier alliances could both complete the map 100%, but the one that did so the most skillfully through the best attacker bonus would win. But apparently Kabam doesn't like it when that happens, so that can't be why attacker bonus is there. In fact, that combined with their node increases tells me the actual reason why attack bonus was there was to restrain defender diversity. Again: it was to manipulate the players into playing the way Kabam wants us to play: place the strongest possible defense to stop the other side, but not more. They actually hinted at this in their latest changes thread where they said that because we "got good" at the hardest defenders, the need for diversity points wasn't as high. In other words, we got better on attack, so they now want to change the manipulation dials to allow alliances to place stronger defenders.

Why do all of this? I think it is because Kabam has this idea that we the players should be balancing AW for them. They want to manipulate the alliances into placing strong, but not too strong defenses, and then trying, but not always succeeding to defeat them. But this is never going to happen except by coincidence. Because you can't manipulate the players into fighting balanced wars: the goal of fighting a war is to win, by any means necessary. You don't want to just barely win: you want to gain as much advantage as possible and destroy the opponent if possible. You're never going to want to do anything less than the absolute maximum possible for your alliance's strength and tier.

I wish I knew how to fix this, because if I'm right, someone's mind needs to change and it has remained fixated on this one idea for a very long time and through a lot of AW changes that caused a lot of player uproar. They are clearly willing to push through any push back.

Vincew80

@Kabam Miike I seriously hope you guys are bringing these concerns to the devolopers. If it’s going to become the wallet war it sounds like then aw is going to become one more thing kabam ruined... there’s enough of that going on as it is. I’ve already cut my spending way back due to not agreeing with their business strategy & will 100% stop if spending wins wars. The greed has to stop somewhere & most your player base wants at least one mode where skill is all that’s needed.

Raganator

DNA3000 wrote: »

I wish I knew how to fix this, because if I'm right, someone's mind needs to change and it has remained fixated on this one idea for a very long time and through a lot of AW changes that caused a lot of player uproar. They are clearly willing to push through any push back.

Stubborn. That is the word. And I don't understand it as a strategic business decision.

Menkent

Node 30 is awful

LeNoirFaineant

@DNA3000 fantastic post.

1TapTakeANap

How have people not realised this is still a silent nerf to AW Rewards.........

Last 2 seasons it was 8 weeks on, 2 weeks off and repeat , that's 10 weeks for a new season to start. NOW ? It will take 12 weeks to get to the same exact point.

4 seasons of AW in the "shorter" seasons will essentially net you a loss of a full seasons rewards...

May not seem like much but over the long run there wil be significant losses.

Was this intended?

@Kabam Miike

DNA3000

1TapTakeANap wrote: »

How have people not realised this is still a silent nerf to AW Rewards.........

Others have mentioned it, but in my opinion it is not a nerf to rewards. You're getting the same rewards for the same effort. If you count this as a nerf to rewards, then when people were asking for a longer break between seasons that would also be a nerf to rewards. I'm pretty sure none of the people asking for a longer break were asking for a nerf to rewards.

Slig

Not the same effort anymore with the addition of the new minibosses/nodes

DNA3000

Slig wrote: »

Not the same effort anymore with the addition of the new minibosses/nodes

Technically true for some alliances, but that statement was made in the context of the war season schedule, not the map difficulty.

1TapTakeANap

DNA3000 wrote: »

Slig wrote: »

Not the same effort anymore with the addition of the new minibosses/nodes

Technically true for some alliances, but that statement was made in the context of the war season schedule, not the map difficulty.

But the reply was made in context of map difficulty. Which he had a valid point aswell.

ALSO Not everyone was asking for longer breaks . Majority of people are not in the top 50 alliances for AW and we dont really care if those players get burnt out and want longer breaks.
We want rewards to get better over time or atleast stay the same as a bare minimum.

Kabam cares about their bank account though so they listen to them.

DNA3000

1TapTakeANap wrote: »

DNA3000 wrote: »

Slig wrote: »

Not the same effort anymore with the addition of the new minibosses/nodes

Technically true for some alliances, but that statement was made in the context of the war season schedule, not the map difficulty.

But the reply was made in context of map difficulty. Which he had a valid point aswell.

ALSO Not everyone was asking for longer breaks . Majority of people are not in the top 50 alliances for AW and we dont really care if those players get burnt out and want longer breaks.
We want rewards to get better over time or atleast stay the same as a bare minimum.

Kabam cares about their bank account though so they listen to them.

I would bet real money most players are perfectly fine with the new schedule itself. I don't know how many of you are included in "we" but I'm pretty sure it is not the majority of players.

Slig

I’m fine with the new schedule. But if they are going to ratchet up the difficulty, the rewards should go up as well. Particularly when most of the rewards are based on exploration percentage

IanMoone

Can we get a list of updated rewards for S3 or do we gotta wait till wednesday?

Fayle

Let me jusst add to the voices expressing displeasure with the new mini-boss nodes. "All or Nothing" with "Strikeback" ? Good luck facing a Hyperion at that.
Buffet or Masochism at nodes with +450% total health? How can you make a dent at that? Not to mention the Buffet with +100% recovery combo.
These nodes are not mini-bosses, they are roadblock. Please consider toning them down a bit

unknown

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Pablito_009

@Kabam Miike qué pasó con las compensaciones de los mantenimientos constantes?? O la perdida de conexión aún jugando con wifi? O de la caída de servidores?

DiegoV

Aw is broken

Remove this changes and create another modification

Is totally pay to win on the top tiers

Zuko_ILC

My ally is done spending in AW, no point anymore. Increase in difficulty just made this not fun at all.

Karakanli

My Alliance also decided to stop spending - anything. No units, in potions, no boosts.

We‘ll see where we end up this time. Gold 1 in season 1 and 2. but it just isn‘t worth the invest and effort - specially with all the other „Features“ Kabam promotes to us for free... 🤮

DarkestDestroyer

It’s a real shame that the mod comments drop off, however I do feel like thenrewards per war 100% need to be scaled up to match the difficulty.

I also feel the war victor crystal needs adjusting too; I’m not sure anyone likes using some epic boosts and potions to win and then receive a 3* arena boost from the crystal! Like seriously?

Just add 5* / 6* shards and then decent level 3/4 revived and potions in.

Zuko_ILC

DarkestDestroyer wrote: »

It’s a real shame that the mod comments drop off, however I do feel like thenrewards per war 100% need to be scaled up to match the difficulty.

I also feel the war victor crystal needs adjusting too; I’m not sure anyone likes using some epic boosts and potions to win and then receive a 3* arena boost from the crystal! Like seriously?

Just add 5* / 6* shards and then decent level 3/4 revived and potions in.

It looks like this thread got down voted so no ones even reading it anymore.

Cinn

Honestly these changes pretty much killed my interest in AW

TyEdge

@1TapTakeANap There was a 4 week break between the first two war seasons. 8 weeks on, 4 off, 8 on. Given that we're now looking at a 2-week delay before a 4-week season, it seems that Kabam has identified the 2:1 ratio as their target amount for on-season and off-season.

I think as Kabam alienates the playerbase with their lack of communication and ill-conceived changes to major game modes, there will be a power vacuum. Alliances are thinning or scaling back. Alliance war rewards are based on raw rankings. If only 1500 alliances compete, everyone makes Gold 1 or higher. By the same token, if many alliances opt for less aggressive spending strategies, they'll essentially voluntarily slide down to make room for others.

At the very top? Sure, that's a cutthroat, pay-to-win situation regardless. You'll always have that on the extremes.

Bryan_85

New nodes are completely and utterly pathetic. You can’t tell me that all masters and P1 alliances won’t 100% maps in spirits of competition. This is a contest, and you thinking that alliances won’t 100% maps is rediculous! Nothing more than lining your pockets. Reduce these nodes for the balance of the game. And fix other issues pressing please.

Hosemania

Alliance war is such a money grab now. Every season kabam has increased the difficulty of alliance war since seasons started. It’s amazing how this company functions with all the bugs and changes it makes to screw its customers. They change aq and add sentinels which only affected everyone that didn’t play map 6. Now they changed aw so only the Whales are able to complete since they will pay to finish. AW will be the death of this game. So many players have left or been kicked that it’s just not worth the time and effort.

Raganator

Basically - Kabam is banking on sufficient revenues from the top 20-30 alliances (who will spend their way through regardless). Other alliances will just not feed money into a broken system where the ultimate goal is failure. Failing is fun!

Karakanli

Anyone noticed that new semi bosses are gone in AW. We play in Tier 5 and today those overdone buffs are no more... 🧐