**WINTER OF WOE - BONUS OBJECTIVE POINT**
As previously announced, the team will be distributing an additional point toward milestones to anyone who completed the Absorbing Man fight in the first step of the Winter of Woe.
This point will be distributed at a later time as it requires the team to pull and analyze data.
The timeline has not been set, but work has started.
There is currently an issue where some Alliances are are unable to find a match in Alliance Wars, or are receiving Byes without getting the benefits of the Win. We will be adjusting the Season Points of the Alliances that are affected within the coming weeks, and will be working to compensate them for their missed Per War rewards as well.

Additionally, we are working to address an issue where new Members of an Alliance are unable to place Defenders for the next War after joining. We are working to address this, but it will require a future update.

Developers Thoughts: Improving Alliance Wars Discussion Thread

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Comments

  • nebneb Posts: 453 ★★★
    Personally I think a cool idea for a global would be something like defenders get 300% increased hp, class advantage bonus increased by 500%.
  • At last kabam want to take right decision
  • This is terrible in my opinion. The 1st buff (Amped up) seems decent. I don't know anyone who will specifically change their attack team to do it, but would seems like it could help.

    The Bleed Immune is terrible. I don't think a buff should grant immunity from a lot of champs' main damage output. If someone has only 2 R5 and they are bleeders (GP, KM, Domino, Blade, Medusa, etc) then they look worthless on attack for this Season. You make them top targets to kick. Also, we have so few resources to rank champs high and to nerf them doesn't make people happy. Give us more rewards to rank more champs before this lame buff. The buffs should be something more general, like Class or the broader tags, i.e. Hero, Villain, Merc. Make Heros gain a buff on D and Villains a buff on Attack, that sounds fun without destroying ppl's top champs for a whole season

    If you saw a lot of Corvus in S4, wait for S5, lol.

    I personally think kabam should really take a good look at this post. If they are seriously thinking of how to encourage diversity, what is being suggested here basically is the most direct approach to encourage usage of all types of champs. Just give a buff to class or broader tags champs eg. Only mystic heroes or science villains gain power or like act 5 chapter 3, all champs but certain class or tags reduce attack by 50% etc. if kabam don’t respond to the above post then I seriously doubt their intentions is to encourage more usage of other champs. Why implement something that’s not directly solving the root of the issue and are still being subjected to the unhappiness of the community? Unless your intentions are not as stated in your thoughts?
  • What about the issue with cheating alliances getting dropped to lower tiers and roflstomping alliances they have no business playing?

    So this is something we haven't really commented on yet, but I can say that we are aware of how this affects other Alliances, and is something we are looking at solutions to. We're not 100% sure on exactly what we're going to do at this time, but are looking to have something in place for Season 5.

    Do something like restricting them to be able to use only 4* or 5* R3 champs for both offense and defense for the next season, instead of dropping them to lower tiers and punishing the opponents they will be meeting in lower tiers.
  • Y0shY0sh Posts: 27
    Although I can kind of understand where the developers are coming from with their seasonal tweaks of AW, I do not think they understand what a nightmare it is to organize AW placements and assignments. Officers are provided ridiculously limited ability to manage AW/AQ, and introducing anything that requires new assignments throughout the season is a stroke waiting to happen. I literally spend hours and even days planning things out via third party apps, excel, websites simply because Kabam offers so little useful resources or data themselves. And even after that is done, it is like herding cats to get everyone to follow instructions.

    Yeah, there are some defenders (IMIW, Modok, Korg, Medusa, etc.) and offenders (Blade, Void, CG, etc.) that everyone uses, but that's how you guys made it. And I feel that most officers have a set it and forget it approach, because after we spent all that time coming up with placements / assignments, the last thing we want to do is make more changes. Introducing things like rotating buffs / debuffs is just a band-aid IMO.

    Please give us more tools and data to manage AW if you really want to introduce dynamic changes. I'm still waiting for that Kabam employee to come back from vacation to give us prestige figures not that it really matters anymore.

    Do you have any suggestions on how we can do that? Like any tools in particular would be helpful in this kind of stuff?

    In all seriousness...bases....make the war D the base and allow officers access to simulate placement by adding alliance members rosters into different BGs. They could have access throughout the week and not only during placement phase. Lock it down once attack starts. This way officers have the ability to simulate defensive placements without having to wait until everyone actually joins a BG or creating spreadsheets, screenshots, 3rd party apps, etc.
  • CosmicZen wrote: »
    Why not make an attacker diversity point system? Then you will have specialized diverse champs per path. This will also make content harder to beat. There are only so many bleed immune champs etc

    This is a great idea. Have a diversity system for who people attack with. At the bare minimum this will prevent teams from tying!

    Yes, and by rewarding more points for diversity in both offense and defense. Make them the tie breaker!
  • Isman1998Isman1998 Posts: 520 ★★★
    Wait a global bleed immune node? Just screw my 5 star rank 4 X23 I guess. :(
  • DJSergy wrote: »
    Just read thtough most of the comments. I actually love what Kabams intentions are here. Seem like some great changes. With that said! If one of your goals is to diversify attacker use and defender placement then for the love of god please help us rank up champios faster. I've been playing since day 1 and only having 1 rank 5 and 3 rank 4 champs is ridiculous. I have like 50 5 stars and my choices of ranking up has been very limited because of who is more useful and where. Not too mention 80% of the champs all need to be buffed to make them more challenging. Most people only have trouble with a very small handful of fights which makes the rest of the champs very easy no matter what buffs you add to them.

    Exactly my point nothing wrong with what they trying to do could be great for the game but they either need to allow us to rank up champs faster or issue rank down tickets every season. Pretty simple imo

    Totally agree. People are not gonna give up their 5/65 or 4/55 to replace with a 3/45 or 2/35 to go into AW with.
  • Maximus_SpankersonMaximus_Spankerson Posts: 445 ★★
    edited October 2018

    Do you have any suggestions on how we can do that? Like any tools in particular would be helpful in this kind of stuff?


    http://www.alliancewar.com/aw/


    Post edited by Kabam Lyra on
  • Tiny_Tank_Tiny_Tank_ Posts: 1
    This change has nothing to do with more Dynamic play, Kabam just wants us to buy more revives and potions. If you really want more Dynamic play remove potions and revives altogether Kabam. Let true skill be the deciding factor in Alliance Wars.
  • GroundedWisdomGroundedWisdom Posts: 36,193 ★★★★★
    edited October 2018
    All-in-all, I have no issues with the changes coming so far. The rotating Buffs aren't Attacker Diversity perse, at least in the sense we've come to know it. It just means more Champs will be utilized. Let's face it. It's been dominated by one Champ, and I don't feel that it's a good direction for the game to go in to have one Champ always dominate any game mode.
    I'm also glad they're looking at Matchmaking manipulation. It's been one of my larger concerns. Between Collusion, Tanking, and Penalization, the Matchmaking system has been all over the place, and that's caused a detriment to many.
    Glad to know these things are being considered.

    Which one champ are you talking about? Corvus? Sparky? Blade? I don't know if I can agree that one champ has been dominating any game mode let alone AW. Based on the wars I've been in and countless AW vids I've watched from various Youtubers and their Alliance Mates from different tiers, I haven't seen more than 3 people use the same team in each BG. And they certainly haven't been using only one champ to clear their path.

    Apparently you must not have seen the Leaderboard. Should I say the Bladerboard.

    I hope you're not basing your opinion based on the Leaderboard. Back when Blade was first released, Mystic Wars were still happening especially in the higher tiers. A little while after he was released so was Act 5.4 which rewarded, anyone who fully explored it, the option to to r5 1 5* champion. It just so happened that Blade was a great counter to Mystics and had high prestige so of course the higher ups were going to choose him as their first r5 and pump every signature stone they have into him.

    Fast forward to today and now we see Mystic Wars are dead and the new Auto-Block era has arrived. By now, the higher ups has at least already got their Blades to sig level 200 and their hands on a shiny new Corvus. Now since Corvus hasn't been around for as long as Blade has and introduced during the first time T5B has came out it should make sense why you'd still see more Blades than any other champ on the leaderboard, albeit a lot less.

    In this current meta, Blade just isn't that useful anymore in AW at least since Kabam killed off Mystic Wars (not complaining btw). I'll be so bold to say if Kabam issued RDT's right now you'd probably see more IMIWs, Corvus Glaives, KM, or Thor Ragnaroks in place of Blade.

    So yeah, I've seen the Leaderboards. But I also pay attention to when the meta shifts.

    Changing MD has literally just happened, and these changes have no doubt been in the works some time. They're also ongoing, so this is just the first introduction we will likely see. I think it's a good idea overall. It's a given that the norm is to find a popular Champ for Attack, the majority use the same Champ or two, and then it becomes just the same dance with little challenge. They're adding more moving parts.

    Mystic Wars were dead long before the changes to MD. The fact that it was recently nerfed just makes it a "little more dead". Also, I'm not against them trying to diversify Attack teams more. All I'm trying to say is that I disagree with what you said that currently one champ is dominating this one game mode when there's a good amount of evidence on the forums alone proving otherwise. Right now you might be thinking I'm replying just to argue but I just don't want Kabam to get the wrong idea that Blade is still the current meta.

    Edit: Also, what's wrong with using the same champ as long as everyone isn't using it? I'm more comfortable using Venom/Stark Spidey than MS/AA and I tend to bring them along more because of the path I take in war.
    I'm inclined to disagree that a large number weren't using Blade for War. Perhaps some were exploring other options, but the data must have shown a strong reliance on Bleed Champs, otherwise there wouldn't be the Global Node. Blade is just one example. As for the same Champ, I'm not talking bringing the same Champ ourselves. I'm talking about a majority relying on the same Champ. I'm sorry, but some people relying on alternatives doesn't change the majority reliance.

    I'm not sure what you mean by "a majority relying on the same champ". Do you mean, for example, a majority of players relying on the same X champ? Or a majority relying on the champs they like to bring? Also, you can look at some of Brian Grant's, Lagacy's, or COWhale's War Vids and see if they check other alliance members War Teams if you think that a large number of players in the higher tiers are using Blade. Because based of what I've seen, if anyone is using him it's probably for maybe a couple of pesky mystics and synergies. As for the Bleed Immunity Global node, there's a lot of champions that Bleed and rely on Bleed to maximize DPS, such as: GP, Domino, KM, Hawkeye, and especially AA just to name a few. That might not seem like much but when RNG grants you these champs as viable options to r5 out of the garbage pulled then you have to make do. And with these new nodes this is definitely a problem to those with such champs. So if they are considering that a Bleed Immune global node is necessary to promote Attacker Diversity, then I think they need to consider how it can negatively affect the players too.

    I'm pretty sure it was clear what I meant. I don't really subscribe to YouTube to make my own observations. What the Bleed Immunity Node does is encourage people not to rely on the same tactic. That's what it's all about. To add a level of challenge and rotate it in order to keep it less reliant on the same tactics. There's scarce little they could do outside of Global Nodes that isn't flat-out making certain Champs mandatory. Bleed is only one Debuff. People rely on it because it gets fast kills. The negative side to that is it takes away a degree of challenge.

    I mean...I just wanted to clarify.

    Anyways, unless if you are in the Master bracket, I think you should allow Youtubers to influence your observation to some degree if you want to make a valid opinion on a subject such as this.

    Regarding the point you made about the Bleed Immunity node "encouraging" people to not rely on the same tactic because it gets fast kills and takes away a degree of challenge, to me, is absurd. For one, the only thing in this current meta that will get you a fast kill and take away a degree of challenge is boosting your heart out which I doubt Kabam is going to try to change any time soon. Secondly, it's not like all people in the affected brackets have a wide range of r4 and r5 5* champions to choose from like their 4*s. One of our officers, for example, has been getting bad pulls from his 5* crystals except for a couple, which are AA and CB with AA being his main attacker and SW and CB being backup. (Side Note: If you want to stay competitive in the current state of AW you're going to have to finish fights in under 3 minutes) He brings AA every war because he has to for our alliance and not because it's easier to steamroll through AW. You might be asking, what's the point of bringing him up? It's because I can guarantee that there are other people in the same situation as him, maybe with different champs, that would be impacted very negatively because of this Global Node. In summary, you can't just say people rely on Bleed champs just because they get fast kills. In some situations, Bleed champs are all they've got to stay competitive.

    If Kabam wants people to change up attack teams as often as Idelest does during seasons that's totally fine by me. I just don't think adding a Global Node like Bleed Immunity is the way to do it. And if they do, at least buff the rewards a bit so we can grow our rosters to adapt to this new level of progression.

    So what exactly do you suggest as opposed to Global Nodes? There aren't many options to inhibit.

    I'm not opposed to Global Nodes in general. I'm just opposed to Global Nodes such as Bleed Immunity that could cripple teams. If they introduced nodes similar to Amped Up like the Mutant/Cosmic/Tech Wrath to promote the use of other champs then I'm totally fine with that because it leaves me the option to use my regular attack team if I have to. But Global Nodes similar to Bleed Immunity such as Overclocked or even Poison Immunity that force players to use champs they might not even have to in order to stay competitive is a problem.

    Also, as suggested by Dorky Diggety Dave before, they could just introduce Attacker Diversity if that's there main goal instead of Global Nodes.

    They can't really introduce Attacker Diversity in the way we know it because it's not the same as Defense. You have 3 options for yourself, not 50 options on a Map. Who you select may affect the opposing Ally based on what you can and cannot take down, but it really doesn't affect the same way where you're coming up against the same few Champs 30 or 40 times.
    Now, the goal they indicated is to encourage people to use other options. I may have used the same language to describe the Nodes, but that was my way of trying to be gentle. The purpose of the Nodes is to do exactly what they do. Limit your options so you have to look for other strategies. There isn't a kind of/sort of gentle way to limit options.
  • BigPoppaCBONEBigPoppaCBONE Posts: 2,262 ★★★★★
    If you want more diverse attackers and defenders, making current popular choices worse is the wrong way. Make other options better. Then players will exercise those options. Something so basic shouldn’t need to be spelled out after every announcement.
    Double-time it on making old champs less terrible. Not just with synergies tied to new champs.
  • SuelSuel Posts: 279
    When does it start?
  • Obviously we're going to use a small group of champions, because
    1: you guys create champions that only a small group can defeat.
    2: it is so expensive and difficult to get items to evolve champions that we are forced to stay with this small group.
    Instead of creating more problems, as you are clearly planning, solve those problems and you will see a greater variety in attack and defense.
  • R4GER4GE Posts: 1,530 ★★★★
    Kratos1991 wrote: »
    I need rank down tickets ASAP for my blade and Archangel . Took them to rank 5 and u **** them hard !

    I am in the same boat. Its unfortunate Kabam wants to punish players for their rank up decisions and make them useless while given them nothing in return.

    They want diversity but allow us no means to make this actually happen. There is still to wide a rang of garbage champs vs good champs and the odds of getting good champs is low. But at the same time, even if we got some new good champs today our rare resources are already gone.
  • DTMelodicMetalDTMelodicMetal Posts: 2,785 ★★★★★
    Bodhizen wrote: »
    ChrisB23 wrote: »
    You want me to bring another champ? Fine, i’ll need resources to rank up another, specifically T5B and T2a or I’ll need a rank down ticket. And I want my awakening gem and sig stones back.
    The reality is I’ll probably have to still bring Blade because of his rank for the danger sense and for the Sparky synergy.

    I have deep wounds at level 5. Which is obsolete for the next month. Where are the masteries to increase shock damage, or cold damage? And the equivalents of Coagulate and Suture? It’s time to expand that tree and give us more points to spend.

    Want wars to be harder?
    Activate the synergies in war defence.

    Want more defender diversity?
    Activate the synergies in war defence.

    Want to level the playing field in Wars?
    More T2a and T5B availability.

    Please and thank you.
    It effectively boils down to this. The rest of my comments are directed toward Kabam:

    We have an artificially created system in place that prevents Summoners from having access to the necessary resources to rank up Champions to keep up with changes in the Meta. It's not simply a matter of "play better" or "join a better Alliance"; you set the restrictions on how many Tier 5 Basic Catalysts and Tier 2 Alpha Catalysts we have access to at any given time, both in how many we can keep in our Stash, and how many we get access to through monthly event quests. You want to make changes to the meta of Alliance Wars? That's great! We need to be able to respond in a reasonable time frame to those changes. At present, here's what you can gain each month to rank up your 5-star and 6-star Champions to remain competitive (I don't count the resources gained from Story Quest, as they are one-time rewards):

    From the monthly quests:
    35% of a Tier-2 Alpha Catalyst (3 months to form one, and you need 10 to take your 5-Star Champions up to Rank 5) It takes you two and a half years to get enough Tier-2 Alpha Catalyst shards to max out a 5-Star Champion from Monthly Quests!
    20% of a Tier-5 Basic Catalyst (5 months to form one, and you need 6 to take your 5-Star Champions up to Rank 5) It takes you 10 months to get enough Tier-5 Basic Catalyst shards to max out a 5-Star Champion from Monthly Quests!
    16% of a 6-Star Champion Crystal (7 months to acquire another Champion)

    From the seasonal Alliance War rewards: (Assuming that you're one of the top 1,500 Alliances; anything above that is even more restricted)
    12.5% of a Tier-2 Alpha Catalyst
    2.5% of a Tier-5 Basic Catalyst
    10% of a 6-Star Champion Crystal

    Sure, you can buy the resources faster (including with Glory), but you can't reliably farm them faster than that! It costs a maximum of five months (faster if you spend more Glory) and a minimum 17,000 Glory (more if you try to go faster) to get a Tier-2 Alpha Catalyst. You can't even get Tier-5 Basic fragments in the Glory store. The #1 Alliance would have to farm Glory for 5 weeks to get enough Glory to afford that (and spend five months to get it at the minimum). Thank goodness that the #1 Alliance gets half a Tier-2 Alpha Catalyst each week. Going back to the top 1,500 Alliances, they can look forward to 16 weeks of farming Alliance quest to have the glory to purchase one Tier-2 Alpha Catalyst (drawn out over five months to get it at the minimum price). At that rate, you get the Tier-2 Alphas you need over the course of three years and ten months!

    So, at best, you're taking around two years to farm the resources you need to max out a single 5-Star Champion when you combine all factors if you're a member of one of the top 1,500 Alliances. Unless you make dramatic changes to the rate at which resources can be acquired, Summoners cannot respond to Alliance War global buff & debuff seasonal changes. The top handful of Alliances will still dominate, and the rest will still be left to fend for themselves.

    On top of that, we haven't had new (or more diverse) Masteries in over a year. No new mastery points since we hit Level 60 (unless you hadn't previously finished some Story Quest content). No way to enhance the effectiveness of our Champions' other Damage Over Time debuffs (Shock, Incinerate, Coldsnap, Degeneration, etc...). No ways to enhance the effectiveness of buffs gained from well-timed blocks and evades such as Prowess or Poise. No masteries that you invest in to increase the effectiveness of defensive buffs such as Armor Up or Regeneration, or to enhance the effectiveness of Power Gain, Power Drain, Power Burn, Power Sting, or Power Lock. No masteries to help you to resist debuffs other than Bleed (like Coagulate and Suture, but for other Damage Over Time debuffs). No meta-masteries that would increase the time or effectiveness of all debuffs placed upon an opponent, or to reduce the time or effectiveness of all debuffs placed upon one of your own Champions.

    It's great that you give us all of these shiny new toys to play with, but you only give us half of the tools we need to get the best use out of them. These issues need to be addressed far more than Alliance Wars need global buffs and debuffs to make them more dynamic. That's what needs to be communicated to the management and programming teams!

    Best wishes!

    @Kabam Porkchop
    @Kabam Miike
    @Kabam Lyra
    @Kabam Zibiit
    @Kabam Vydious

    @Bodhizen Outstanding post
  • war10ckedwar10cked Posts: 45
    You introduced bleed champ and now you telling no bleed on AW. Come on. Where do we use bleed champs. Quest..!!!!. Besides this month epic my 3* are enough to clear them all. What kind of solution is that. I am playing in an plat3 alliance. My top champ is GP,x23.
    If kabam you saying stop playing our game if you can’t pull good champ you can say that. What nxt is comming arm break immune, weakness immune. You should make everything immune. So much creativity.
  • ChampioncriticChampioncritic Posts: 3,347 ★★★★
    Chill community, surely you can live with a global bleed immune node for one season. Now if the global node were "Prove yourself" or "masochism" though, THEN i'd be pissed.
  • ChampioncriticChampioncritic Posts: 3,347 ★★★★
    Prove yourself against the final boss? yeah good luck with that lol
This discussion has been closed.