Developers Thoughts: Improving Alliance Wars Discussion Thread

Hey Summoners!

We've just posted a brand new behind the scenes look at the future of Alliance Wars, including some new changes coming to Alliance Wars Season 5! Make sure you take a read of the post over on our Blog: https://playcontestofchampions.com/developer-thoughts-improving-alliance-wars/

The Rotating Global Buffs kick off on October 17th! Prepare yourselves!

Comments

demed

Will the global node apply to defenders? E.g. female defenders will be buffed. And will medusa be fixed before the new war season?

Worknprogress

demed wrote: »

Will the global node apply to defenders? E.g. female defenders will be buffed. And will medusa be fixed before the new war season?

It says in the post which side each buff affects...

HodgePodge19

I would like to have someone explain to me how this new global node benefits anyone in Alliance War? I know that there are many others out there like me that have spent a lot of time and effort (and to a certain degree money) into leveling up specific champions in this game. I will use myself for example. Upon exploring act 5 I had the resources to take a 5* champion to rank 5, this would be the first time that I had been able to do such a thing and I had plenty of what I thought were good options. In the end I went with Archangel. I used a generic awakening gem (keep in mind this is not a debate as to whether or not he is worthy of that), rank up gem, my only two t5 basic, and however many t2 alpha it takes to level him up from rank 3 all the way to rank 5. I did this knowing that while he would not be useful in all situations he could still inflict bleed when he could not poison, and when he could inflict his neurotoxin he could heal block all while doing a lot of damage. Now, for some reason, someone thinks that making a GLOBAL node for all of Alliance War to make every defender bleed immune is a good idea. I get that you are saying that it is encouraging people to level up different champs, but do you think that can happen over night? It takes A LOT of time to farm the materials needed to level up a champion, only to have someone with authority say we are going to make a MASSIVE meta change to the dynamic of Alliance War. Alliance War for many people is the best way to receive the materials necessary to level up a new champion in the first place. So now you can not adequately perform in the one area that lets you get the materials you need to adjust to the random change that you made in the first place. It is very hard for me to not think that this is simply a huge money grab so people have to buy crystals to get more champions that don't rely on bleed, and then spend more money on the materials that they need to rank them up. There are roughly 50 champions that either inflict or heavily rely on bleed, and by making this change you have made this roughly 35-45% of the TOTAL champions in this game inadequate for Alliance War. Are rosters supposed to do a complete overhaul before the next season? I would like for someone to explain to me how if that is the case. I doubt that a moderator or anyone from Kabam will even read this, but I would love to hear from them and get something other than the generic "competitive balance" platitude. This takes a lot of the fun out a game that I used to enjoy playing a lot, and it seems like many of the decisions made are knee jerk reactions. These changes seem like a large step in alienating a player base. Change my mind. I would also like to add that this affects mastery set ups as well, because deep wounds is now virtually useless in Alliance War as well. There is no enhanced poison or degeneration mastery to replace this either.

GroundedWisdom

TheSpicyKnight wrote: »

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.[/quote]

What? The goal is to promote diversity in Attack Teams right? Isn't that the reason why they're introducing these Global Nodes? Just because you only have 3 slots in attack instead of 50 doesn't mean Attacker Diversity can't be implemented. Maybe I'm just confused on what you're trying to say and I hope you can elaborate a bit more for me. Also, I only mentioned Attacker Diversity as an alternative to Global Nodes.

The point you made about these nodes limiting my options raises a red flag considering that other players in the challenger bracket and I don't have a plethora of r4 5* champions to choose from month to month for AW. Honestly, if the choices made here for AW is not gentle enough for players to adapt without increasing the rewards appropriately then they shouldn't do it. Why should people who favor and rank up champs that bleed be affected so negatively like this? I mean even in their post they said that they wanted to encourage more diversity in Attack Teams without making favorable attackers less valuable but Global Nodes like Bleed Immunity just prove otherwise (And, before someone quotes me on this part, I'm not talking about Blade. I'm talking about other champs that people rank up as one of their few r4s or r5s such as GP or AA who actually need bleed to maximize DPS).

Edit: Post reached the max character limit including all the quotes which is why it looks so rough [/quote]

You're diversifying among 3 Champs each. Not among 30 Champs on the board. They want people to use other options. Not for everyone to have different Attackers collectively. You're talking about two different aspects. Attack is not the same as Defense.

Brainimpacter

well according to kabam they want a more diverse defence too instead of only certain champs for certain node every war without change.
the thing is people are stuck with those champs now as they used rare resources on them so cant just switch them on kabams say so and why would they want to place lower ranked champs to watch them die in 10 hits to a 5/65, no matter the global buffs and debuffs people cant just change when their items were used elsewhere.

Demonzfyre

Kratos1991 wrote: »

I need rank down tickets ASAP for my blade and Archangel . Took them to rank 5 and u **** them hard !

@Kratos1991 so Blade and AA can't be used in any other game mode? If you rank down Blade or AA today and Act 6 comes out, what are you going to do then? It's 1 season only. Get better with different champs and hone your skills (if you have them).

borntohula

Wrong quote. Move on.

Brainimpacter

Demonzfyre wrote: »

Kratos1991 wrote: »

I need rank down tickets ASAP for my blade and Archangel . Took them to rank 5 and u **** them hard !

@Kratos1991 so Blade and AA can't be used in any other game mode? If you rank down Blade or AA today and Act 6 comes out, what are you going to do then? It's 1 season only. Get better with different champs and hone your skills (if you have them).

who cares about 12 weeks from now, we are worried how we are going to play for the next 7, its nothing to do with skills its about putting resources into champs for a specific game mode and now they are made useless and we stuck without resources for others.
what will happen in war season after next when they introduce a global buffet node and champs we started to use next season become useless, we always going to be behind having champs we put resources into for specific war seasons rendered useless every 6 weeks

borntohula

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

This. On repeat. Ad infinitum.

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Buttehrs

None of you seem to read very well. This season is bleed immune. Next season will be different. So theres no effing reason to ask for rdt

demed

Worknprogress wrote: »

demed wrote: »

Will the global node apply to defenders? E.g. female defenders will be buffed. And will medusa be fixed before the new war season?

It says in the post which side each buff affects...

I haven't seen anything about medusa though being fixed. Given she is the boss in 80% of the wars and with one of the most effective counters for her having been killmonger, they are effectively making him useless with one of the global nodes being bleed immune. Given how bugged medusa is right now, instead of promoting "diversity" they are effectively minimizing the options people have for taking a boss and pushing towards a war season where magik will be the single op champion in offence. I am struggling to see kabsm's alleged justification for these new global nodes whilst the game remains bugged.

curiousgeorge

So basically, you wanted to indirectly stop Blade and Killmonger from trashing AW, and good job on that, Blade especially needed the slight indirect nerf. But you’ve nerfed champs like x23 AA and Gwenpool who many people use for attack as they are also decent attackers. But those champs aren’t as OP in war as Blade, and GP and AA didn’t need the nerf. There are already enough bleed immune nodes and hidden enemies nerfing AA. Now I can’t even bring him into war at all.

Jawarrior2001

Buttehrs wrote: »

None of you seem to read very well. This season is bleed immune. Next season will be different. So theres no effing reason to ask for rdt

The trouble is with this season is going to screw up so many attack teams it's stupid, I like to use sabertooth/void/killmonger in wars, with the proposed changes, both killmonger and sabertooth are going to be useless in the war,
Gwenpool deals massive bleed damage and uses bleed to refresh incinerate/enervate, wont be possible.
Archangel wont be able to make opps bleed therefore no poison/neurotoxin.
Gamora wont be able to use special attacks to the full extent.
Hawkeye, great for power control and awakened his hemorrhage is awesome, again useless in new season.
Carnage awakened ability grants power gain when opp is bleeding to help ramp up damage useless.
Wolverine/X-23/Logan all deal a decent amount of bleed damage--or atleast could.
Rocket Racoons special 2 deals a lot of bleed damage to.
Guillotine's bleed also stopped.
Morningstar makes you bleed when she gets hit, which is awesome.

The trouble with that SINGLE node, it affects SOO many champions, if one champion is too powerful then nerf that one champ.

They want to change the meta thats fine, nerf that champion if needed, but to screw so many champions in a season is pointless and just a way to annoying the hell out of the player base.

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Jawarrior2001

TheSpicyKnight wrote: »

Jawarrior2001 wrote: »

Buttehrs wrote: »

None of you seem to read very well. This season is bleed immune. Next season will be different. So theres no effing reason to ask for rdt

The trouble is with this season is going to screw up so many attack teams it's stupid, I like to use sabertooth/void/killmonger in wars, with the proposed changes, both killmonger and sabertooth are going to be useless in the war,
Gwenpool deals massive bleed damage and uses bleed to refresh incinerate/enervate, wont be possible.
Archangel wont be able to make opps bleed therefore no poison/neurotoxin.
Gamora wont be able to use special attacks to the full extent.
Hawkeye, great for power control and awakened his hemorrhage is awesome, again useless in new season.
Carnage awakened ability grants power gain when opp is bleeding to help ramp up damage useless.
Wolverine/X-23/Logan all deal a decent amount of bleed damage--or atleast could.
Rocket Racoons special 2 deals a lot of bleed damage to.
Guillotine's bleed also stopped.
Morningstar makes you bleed when she gets hit, which is awesome.

The trouble with that SINGLE node, it affects SOO many champions, if one champion is too powerful then nerf that one champ.

They want to change the meta thats fine, nerf that champion if needed, but to screw so many champions in a season is pointless and just a way to annoying the hell out of the player base.

I'd like to add on that it's not just the Bleed Immunity that has people concerned. It's the example they're setting for future seasons where the meta shifts every month it seems.

Agreed, it does set a precidence that each season will be different, which in of itself it a good thing, but stick to the female champ buff. Which when you think about it, Gwenpool will get a buff to attack from this, but is going to suffere MASSIVELY from the bleed immunity. Whats going to happen in the next season, all champs unstoppable, villians buffed, robots buffed, theres plently of choices to pick from that dont ruin a huge amount of champions in the content

IOSJasoN

Just be honest it's a NERF issue the rank down ticket and move on (the good one that gives ALL resources used)
It's a huge nerf to blade during alliance war..
Some players don't seem to understand how huge it is so I'll put it out there..

It's not just his bleed that's nerfed..
No bleed means no power gain while near an opponent..
No power gain off sp2..
No extra power gain affects his regeneration..
Have to be real careful how long you hold that block if you are relying on using his sp..
Your players aren't stupid, Please give us a little respect.. Despite all the major bugs and issues we've hung around, so I think we earned that much..

Shrev0304

You want to have more different champs placed in defence and Offense use but we all
Cant pay or play the game enough to get the resources to Rank up all these champs either. Gold is the biggest issue. If your just starting out or even a higher level player resources are always at a premium. I understand that u dont want everyone ranking to fast and being at the set pace you have made in the game however for most its just never fast enough. Frankly it has caused me to personally to not being in an alliance and just playing at my own pace. I wont get the higher rewards but while I enjoy the game I cant play as often as being in an alliance demands. I want to focus on ranking all my champs and then see if im still even intrested in playing while thats going on.
Also the cost of a mobile game is ridiculous!!! I just dont understand the $$$, way to much to just have fun in the down time.

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R4GE

Demonzfyre wrote: »

Kratos1991 wrote: »

I need rank down tickets ASAP for my blade and Archangel . Took them to rank 5 and u **** them hard !

@Kratos1991 so Blade and AA can't be used in any other game mode? If you rank down Blade or AA today and Act 6 comes out, what are you going to do then? It's 1 season only. Get better with different champs and hone your skills (if you have them).

If you're taking champs to r5 for Quests than maybe you're the one who's skills should be put into question.
Game revolves around AW now and smart rank up revolve around AW. Kind of a dumb thing to suggest someone ranked any type of utility champ as a means to make up for lack of skill, its just smart to.

RagamugginGunner

TheSpicyKnight wrote: »

Jawarrior2001 wrote: »

Buttehrs wrote: »

None of you seem to read very well. This season is bleed immune. Next season will be different. So theres no effing reason to ask for rdt

The trouble is with this season is going to screw up so many attack teams it's stupid, I like to use sabertooth/void/killmonger in wars, with the proposed changes, both killmonger and sabertooth are going to be useless in the war,
Gwenpool deals massive bleed damage and uses bleed to refresh incinerate/enervate, wont be possible.
Archangel wont be able to make opps bleed therefore no poison/neurotoxin.
Gamora wont be able to use special attacks to the full extent.
Hawkeye, great for power control and awakened his hemorrhage is awesome, again useless in new season.
Carnage awakened ability grants power gain when opp is bleeding to help ramp up damage useless.
Wolverine/X-23/Logan all deal a decent amount of bleed damage--or atleast could.
Rocket Racoons special 2 deals a lot of bleed damage to.
Guillotine's bleed also stopped.
Morningstar makes you bleed when she gets hit, which is awesome.

The trouble with that SINGLE node, it affects SOO many champions, if one champion is too powerful then nerf that one champ.

They want to change the meta thats fine, nerf that champion if needed, but to screw so many champions in a season is pointless and just a way to annoying the hell out of the player base.

I'd like to add on that it's not just the Bleed Immunity that has people concerned. It's the example they're setting for future seasons where the meta shifts every month it seems.

This is where I'm at. There simply aren't enough available rank-up materials to keep up with season to season changes. What are they going to do once they see that nothing changed and people still use r5 Blade because he's still better then their other options? Are they going to make a node that shuts down all Skill champs? A node that shuts down all male champs? No more attack synergies?

This is what happens when you don't address the "problem" directly. That "problem" is that there are only 5-8 champs that can effectively beat the top defenders and the 15-20 nodes that can stop a player in their tracks.

The real solution to the "problem" is to buff champs to become actually viable in AW and/or nerf the defenders or nodes so that anyone can beat any champ on any node.

GroundedWisdom

Spicy, I can't handle that Thread error so I'll start a new one. Lol.
It's problem in that you can't use Bleed, but that's the intention of the Node. No matter what restriction they apply, it's going to cause a problem for some.

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Bsnkom

Ok, First of all, I would like to say thanks to Kabam for letting the community know in advance about new war season changes.

The idea of placing a global node -bleed immunity- is detrimental for lots of players that rely on champs abilities. Kabam wants players to use different champs, thats awesome but when the majority of the champs are useless ,lack of power or no useful abilities. makes no sense that kabam force player to use others champions. Theres lots of champions that players die to use but in reality they suck. And guess what is going to happen?!?! Back to the loop.

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Horror_punk

Blade ruining your revenue i know

Once i heard a story the moral of which was
"You reap what you sow"

GroundedWisdom

TheSpicyKnight wrote: »

GroundedWisdom wrote: »

Spicy, I can't handle that Thread error so I'll start a new one. Lol.
It's problem in that you can't use Bleed, but that's the intention of the Node. No matter what restriction they apply, it's going to cause a problem for some.

I agree. There isn't going to be a perfect solution to spice things up in AW. If a certain problem affects only a small amount of people I wouldn't care. However, since this problem affects a large amount of players who ranked up bleed champs I'm just afraid of the effects that this Global Node would cause. If they changed it to Masochism or something that wouldn't cripple other champs for future seasons I'd be content.

At the end of the day, I guess we'd just have to wait and see if it drastically changes the meta or not at all. Or wait to see what Kabam has to say on Monday.

It's also important to remember the Node is only the beginning of the rotation. They're going to implement it, gather the data, and reevaluate. It will most likely be rotated afterwards. At least that's my understanding.

boss6390

It would be a great idea to offer refunds for mastery cores spent on deep wounds now. @Kabam Miike @Kabam Wolf @Kabam Lyra @Kabam Zibiit @Kabam Vydious

Me and a lot of my alliance members leveled up deep wounds specifically for war and we are very mad. So are a bunch of other people. At least we arent asking for rank down tickets. Please do us some liberty.

boss6390

Helicopter_dugdugdug wrote: »

Problem with countering blade is that it counters half of all skill champs ... bleed immunity destroys GP and KM more than Blade

It doesnt affect killmonger more. Lol. He has to ramp up a good bit before his bleeds are really effective. No war fights last that long most of the time. GP yes. AA yes. Wolverine yes. Many others

boss6390

ShiiiiiiiiiD wrote: »

How about diminishing season rewards. If you start and finish with the same alliance the whole season you get 100% and every war you miss is a percentage of the rewards you'd receive. The same rules would apply for the alliance that you get rewards from. This would keep people from jumping as much and keep alliances together more.

No way. That would punish alliances for kicking slackers.