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

MattMan

But if my “crystal luck” hasn’t blessed me with a good female champ to use, my best option may still be a bleed champ (who is now AWnerf’d)....how is AW not more difficult for me?

Kabam logic is from another dimension.

GroundedWisdom

BrianGrant wrote: »

RagamugginGunner wrote: »

BrianGrant wrote: »

Wow... that female buff is bigger than expected. Can we go back in time so I can get Emma Frost?

This season we're going to see female champs do some crazy things. Should be fun.

BG, I'm a big fan, but you look at this game so much differently than most. Love what you do but IMO you're inability to see things from other player's perspective (or care about it) is your biggest weakness as a content creator.

I both see and care about other players perspectives for this and all changes to the game. I've already given Kabam a list of pros and cons to this idea, of which the list of cons was longer.

But if I just automatically went with what everyone said and didn't give my own opinion, I'd just be lying to gain an audience. And the way I really feel is that although this system isn't perfect, and AW in total is far from perfect, I can't help but get excited for a 25-45% attack increase for female champions. Maybe you disagree, which is fine, I'm not trying to change your opinion, but can you at least see why such a massive attack boost for female champions would get me excited?

And I'm probably not even going to be using a female champion this season. I'm just excited for other people and to see their fights.

Well said.

DNA3000

RagamugginGunner wrote: »

BrianGrant wrote: »

Wow... that female buff is bigger than expected. Can we go back in time so I can get Emma Frost?

This season we're going to see female champs do some crazy things. Should be fun.

BG, I'm a big fan, but you look at this game so much differently than most. Love what you do but IMO you're inability to see things from other player's perspective (or care about it) is your biggest weakness as a content creator.

To be very blunt, I would bet any amount of money that most of the people who post on the forums see the game dramatically differently from most of the players as a whole. If the forums represented anything close to the attitude of the majority of players, the game wouldn't have any players.

Also, having watched BGs channel since its early days, I think he does a good job of separating his personal preferences from his objective judgments. I've never felt he was conflating preference with consensus. I think it is one of his stronger suits.

Kpatrix

This might not be a popular idea, but why not place champion restrictions on the preseason beta for these global nodes. Only allow 4* champs or 5* r3 to be used. Then to combat tanking, remove or minimize rating points lost but allow teams trying to boost their rating to get full increase with wins.

The theory behind this is players have larger rosters of 4*s to use, and can try out different teams without being at a bigger disadvantage as they would be against 6* and r4&5 5*s.

Then players can use their top champs in story and eq while still running a competitive war and allow the developers to gather data that more closely resembles a season. A lot of top tier players have the same maxed 4* as they do do 5* and can use their AA and GP as well as blade, venom, Carnage, etc. to see how they are affected.

Maybe even implement this into seasons and buff the nodes up a bit to make the 4*s stronger like in danger rooms, adding skill into the mix even more by capping everyone's champs at the same level because obviously a team with multiple maxed 5*s is going to have an easier time than a team with only r4 5s or lower on attack. It will put everyone on an equal level
Some might not like this because they want to use their top champs, but this would give them an opportunity to showcase their true skill.

Epsilon3

“Let’s encourage more diverse strategies”

*hinders the use of a ton of the viable attackers, adds an attacker buff only a smaller amount of viable champs can use*

-KABAM

Kpatrix

To expand on this even more, since the rewards are so much better at higher tiers, the champ requirements could scale by war rating. Tier 1 and 2 could be unlimited, 3 and 4 could see r5 defenders or eqivellent, t5 and 6 could see 6* star r1 and equivalent, etc.

There could be a global node that would allow the use of any champ on your roster but cap their stats at the cutoff point for your tier. You could still bring your favorite attacker, they would just be effectively deranked to put all champs at a max limit.

This could even solve the mismatching that occuts when teams tank in the off season and then have fights where they are significantly stronger than their opponents by making both teams have a max limit on both attack and defensive strength.

It's just a thought and could probably use some refinement, but I think this could really work well with what the developers are trying to do by introducing the global nodes and the champ requirements from danger rooms, and would allow more diversity that they seem to want so badly as well as keeping all rarities relevent. They could even make the requirements random, make some wars 3" only or 2* only. War would be much easier on the wallet healing up lower rarities as well.

DNA3000

Kpatrix wrote: »

This might not be a popular idea, but why not place champion restrictions on the preseason beta for these global nodes.

As far as I'm aware, these aren't being implemented as buffs on individual nodes or as nodes granting linked buffs until they are killed, these are global buffs that affect all attackers and defenders in the war.

DNA3000

Kpatrix wrote: »

To expand on this even more, since the rewards are so much better at higher tiers, the champ requirements could scale by war rating. Tier 1 and 2 could be unlimited, 3 and 4 could see r5 defenders or eqivellent, t5 and 6 could see 6* star r1 and equivalent, etc.

There could be a global node that would allow the use of any champ on your roster but cap their stats at the cutoff point for your tier. You could still bring your favorite attacker, they would just be effectively deranked to put all champs at a max limit.

Ideas like this were discussed in the early access preview, and also mentioned in this thread. My understanding is that variations on this theme are something Kabam is looking at for future iterations of AW.

Kpatrix

DNA3000 wrote: »

Kpatrix wrote: »

This might not be a popular idea, but why not place champion restrictions on the preseason beta for these global nodes.

As far as I'm aware, these aren't being implemented as buffs on individual nodes or as nodes granting linked buffs until they are killed, these are global buffs that affect all attackers and defenders in the war.

Maybe I wasn't clear, I meant adding champion requirements in addition to the global nodes, while possibly beefing up the regular nodes to compensate for weaker defenders overall.

Kpatrix

I really think this could add a lot more strategy to war, as well as open up more choices for attack teams. We would be able to use s much wider range of maxed champs if we weren't fighting maxed 5*s with some attackers that we have as our top champs bring negated by a global node. Just dig deeper into out roster while still fighting the same relative difficulty. Danger rooms showed this was an effective way to use more of out rosters and the sentinel against the mutants was a challenging fight for most of the players. It's along the lines of bringing in max 4* into uncollected, much more challenging than using high ranked 5* or 6* champs, and really shows skill versus champion strength.

DTMelodicMetal

@Kabam Miike Can we please get an update on Medusa's living strands bug being fixed before AW Season 5 starts? Kabam has a year's worth of clean data to compare the current bugged version of Medusa to, the community will be at an increased disadvantage if they have to fight stronger bugged versions of Medusa AW bosses.

Jobi_Man

Kabam Miike wrote: »

TurtleJames wrote: »

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?

I do...
1. let placement happen while on the map instead of selecting the team ahead of time.

2. Let members put champs in a pool for officers to pull from. If a members can place up to 10 champs to put in the pool.

3. Let the officers have the ability to Auotfill using previous war’s placement.

AshRam

Hey @Kabam Miike , I know you guys like to randomly make crazy decisions and expect us to be fine with it...but these latest changes in war is like taking it to new levels of insanity!!!

We waited long and hard for decent champs to come out of those crystals (once in a blue moon maybe), champs that actually were good for AW attack...then worked hard on collecting resources to rank them up, used awakening gems, sig stones and whatnot!!! And now, out of nowhere, you say all defenders will be bleed immune and ONLY female champs will be amped up??!!!

I get that you want ppl to use their entire roster of champs, but it’s not like you give away free resources when you make these whimsical decisions, nor is it easy to take up champs to playable strength in a short time, you make us grind hard to get any kind of resource!!

And NOW, the EPIC part, you give us 3 weeks, THREE WEEKS!!!!! Three weeks to bring up an entirely new roster for AW attack!!

This ‘Just Deal With It’ attitude from you guys is sick...and you’re able to get away with it coz of your top players (top spenders)...why don’t you just advertise your game as “CAUTION : NOT FREE TO PLAY”, and be done with it?!

Edweezy_14

If y’all want us to adjust and not use the same champs, how come you don’t give us temporary rank up material before each season to be able to keep up with the “meta” of the game.

Josmanx

I do not dislike changes, i think changes are good, so, are you guys from kabam going to give us some rank down tickets so we can make changes in our roster in order to adapt to new changes?

KyleM

Poor aa

unknown

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Kpatrix

How about a rank up ticket instead of rank downs ? Give us all a generic 3-4 for a 5* to help us out ;-)

Red_barron

Welll day 1 of the nerf is here in aw, it’s ok so far as I’ve not opted for a bleed attack, thought it would be nice to mention it on here for the very vocal member who has no idea what it’s like at this level

PaytoPlay

PaytoPlay wrote: »

Anyone knows if the global bleed immune node can be removed after all minis are down? Introducing this to war without fixing Medusa's bug is money grab .... Almost guarantee that's the default AW boss for my tier throughout the season

Well got my answer. Global node is on the boss and not the mini boss.. and facing our first of many bleed immune r5 Medusa boss. Thanks for nothing kabam. Great job on champion diversity and encouraging using bugs to drive revenue.

PaytoPlay

PaytoPlay wrote: »

PaytoPlay wrote: »

Anyone knows if the global bleed immune node can be removed after all minis are down? Introducing this to war without fixing Medusa's bug is money grab .... Almost guarantee that's the default AW boss for my tier throughout the season

Well got my answer. Global node is on the boss and not the mini boss.. and facing our first of many bleed immune r5 Medusa boss. Thanks for nothing kabam. Great job on champion diversity and encouraging using bugs to drive revenue.

Sorry kabam I make a mistake it's only outgoing. My bad.

RavenHood

I’m all for more of a challenge etc. But this will now be the second time a change has been made since the addition of AW seasons but no change in rewards. First was the new mini nodes. Now global nodes.

Again I don’t mind keeping it fresh and challenging however you’re adding the potential for additional cost along with eliminating champs people have invested in potentially. Hey you want to make some more money out of AW season I’m fine and respect that but adding a bump in rewards would show your community you have good intentions rather then some corporate scripted notification to twist it all as a harmless change for player benefit. You have a fast community and many of us business professionals ourselves and know when we are getting the corporate shaft.

mostlyharmlessn

**Cough** Reminder, this was not to make AW harder

PaytoPlay

PaytoPlay wrote: »

PaytoPlay wrote: »

PaytoPlay wrote: »

Anyone knows if the global bleed immune node can be removed after all minis are down? Introducing this to war without fixing Medusa's bug is money grab .... Almost guarantee that's the default AW boss for my tier throughout the season

Well got my answer. Global node is on the boss and not the mini boss.. and facing our first of many bleed immune r5 Medusa boss. Thanks for nothing kabam. Great job on champion diversity and encouraging using bugs to drive revenue.

Sorry kabam I make a mistake it's only outgoing. My bad.

Or.... Did I make a mistake.... 🤔

Just faced a global noded bleed immune r5 5* Medusa boss. *Smh*

Taiphoon_zero

I like the changes , I think they should be permanent

unknown

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TheVyrus

I just do not understand the purpose of this thread. It was presented as an opportunity for the community to DISCUSS possible changes to the AW format. Clearly after 26 pages of conversation the general consensus was this change was not cared for by the players. While some people just screamed about being nerfed and wanting a hand out of some sort, there were many mature responses providing alternative ideas to accomplish the goals Kabam wanted.

So why invite the community to participate in this, if you were not going to listen and discuss with us? Clearly there were no intentions of listening, discussing, or changing the plans. I was really hoping, as this was discussed on the boards that Kabam would listen to their customers and at the very least delay their plans and look for an alternative. Instead we were once again ignored and made to waste our time and energy.

It is really unfortunate that it went down like this. I love the idea of including the community, but to do that we need to heard and acknowledged.

Kabam Miike

TheVyrus wrote: »

I just do not understand the purpose of this thread. It was presented as an opportunity for the community to DISCUSS possible changes to the AW format. Clearly after 26 pages of conversation the general consensus was this change was not cared for by the players. While some people just screamed about being nerfed and wanting a hand out of some sort, there were many mature responses providing alternative ideas to accomplish the goals Kabam wanted.

So why invite the community to participate in this, if you were not going to listen and discuss with us? Clearly there were no intentions of listening, discussing, or changing the plans. I was really hoping, as this was discussed on the boards that Kabam would listen to their customers and at the very least delay their plans and look for an alternative. Instead we were once again ignored and made to waste our time and energy.

It is really unfortunate that it went down like this. I love the idea of including the community, but to do that we need to heard and acknowledged.

Hey there,

Remember, discussion threads are not meant to be only between Summoners and the Game team, but also for summoners to speak to each other! We are aware of how some of you feel, and have said that we're going to continue to monitor this, but we're not going to change anything until you've actually had a chance to experience the Global Rotating buffs.

Additionally, remember that while there are about 700 comments, that is far from meaning 700 different people sharing the same opinion, or even 700 different summoners commenting. This thread is a great example of a lot of back and forth between a small group of Summoners, and that's what Forums are for!

While it's not safe to say that "everybody liked this change", it's also an exaggeration to say that everybody was against it. Outside this thread, there were other threads started where the sentiment was not very close to what you see here. We've also received a lot of feedback via email and on other channels. We will continue to review all feedback we receive, and appreciate you sharing your thoughts. The Contest is constantly evolving, and this is all a part of us working to keep things fresh while also constantly improving the experience!

Werewrym

Kabam Miike wrote: »

TheVyrus wrote: »

I just do not understand the purpose of this thread. It was presented as an opportunity for the community to DISCUSS possible changes to the AW format. Clearly after 26 pages of conversation the general consensus was this change was not cared for by the players. While some people just screamed about being nerfed and wanting a hand out of some sort, there were many mature responses providing alternative ideas to accomplish the goals Kabam wanted.

So why invite the community to participate in this, if you were not going to listen and discuss with us? Clearly there were no intentions of listening, discussing, or changing the plans. I was really hoping, as this was discussed on the boards that Kabam would listen to their customers and at the very least delay their plans and look for an alternative. Instead we were once again ignored and made to waste our time and energy.

It is really unfortunate that it went down like this. I love the idea of including the community, but to do that we need to heard and acknowledged.

Hey there,

Remember, discussion threads are not meant to be only between Summoners and the Game team, but also for summoners to speak to each other! We are aware of how some of you feel, and have said that we're going to continue to monitor this, but we're not going to change anything until you've actually had a chance to experience the Global Rotating buffs.

Additionally, remember that while there are about 700 comments, that is far from meaning 700 different people sharing the same opinion, or even 700 different summoners commenting. This thread is a great example of a lot of back and forth between a small group of Summoners, and that's what Forums are for!

While it's not safe to say that "everybody liked this change", it's also an exaggeration to say that everybody was against it. Outside this thread, there were other threads started where the sentiment was not very close to what you see here. We've also received a lot of feedback via email and on other channels. We will continue to review all feedback we receive, and appreciate you sharing your thoughts. The Contest is constantly evolving, and this is all a part of us working to keep things fresh while also constantly improving the experience!

Since you guys are wanting us to branch out and use different characters, can we at least get a buff to all of our least favorite champs? HB, KK, SG, Colossus, Falcon, She Hulk,... The list goes on and on and on... It's hard for us to use new champs in war when a large majority of them are useless. Fix this, and then we can talk about said changes.

Red_barron

TheVyrus wrote: »

I just do not understand the purpose of this thread. It was presented as an opportunity for the community to DISCUSS possible changes to the AW format. Clearly after 26 pages of conversation the general consensus was this change was not cared for by the players. While some people just screamed about being nerfed and wanting a hand out of some sort, there were many mature responses providing alternative ideas to accomplish the goals Kabam wanted.

So why invite the community to participate in this, if you were not going to listen and discuss with us? Clearly there were no intentions of listening, discussing, or changing the plans. I was really hoping, as this was discussed on the boards that Kabam would listen to their customers and at the very least delay their plans and look for an alternative. Instead we were once again ignored and made to waste our time and energy.

It is really unfortunate that it went down like this. I love the idea of including the community, but to do that we need to heard and acknowledged.

I would possibly add to the above and say it’s almost like they are portraying the idea that by making the thread they are listening to us but at the same time have no intention of doing this. The cheating war rating drop shows this as it’s been said in the last 3 wars on countless threads and only just been acted on now.
It’s not about “ appearing to listen “ it’s about actually listening