AW - Alliance Swap Strategy, AW Rating, and Competitive Balance
Within the last week, I've learned and personally witnessed a strategy employed by some players in which, to start the AW season, the entire alliance moves to a different alliance with a lower AW rating than the one they competed in previously. The thought behind the strategy is for that alliance to face weaker opponents, obtain much higher scores, and rack up easy wins, all in an effort to go 12-0 during the season.
For example, my alliance has about a 2600 rating and fights regularly between tier 3 or 2. Wins and losses against like opponents are often within razor thin margins. In the most recent AW, my alliance faced an alliance that had virtually the same AW rating (over 2600), but, for season 5, that alliance was noted as having achieved "Participation." A closer examination of every player's profile revealed that each one of them had a War Elite title for placing in the top 20 of last season's AW, i.e., each one did not received "Participation" but rather received at least top 20 rewards. As became clear, the strength of our opponents' defense, based on having the resources from top 20 rewards, was so much greater than our own that we did not belong in the same AW. They were clearly much better than us on defense and offense, and we got our butt kicked.
This is but one example. I'm aware of many other alliances that are employing this strategy. And while I am not aware of anything that expressly prohibits this strategy, it feels like an end around the purpose of matching like opponents with like opponents based on rating. Even though we each had a 2600 rating, the reality is that we were fighting an alliance that had more like a rating over 3000 based on the strength of their roster and their offensive skill. The end result is that my alliance fought in an AW where we had no true chance of success based on the level we are at in the game, and a much more advanced alliance obtained an easy win.
There are many aspects to this strategy that feel like the equivalent of a college sports team choosing an easy schedule over a hard one in an effort to have a better looking record. The difference, however, is that there is no form of competitive penalty for the team that goes for the soft schedule. To be sure, the multiplier that exists does not necessarily close that gap.
For instance, assume one team is in tier 1 all season and goes 9-3. Those 9 wins net 3,150,000 additional points (50,000 * 7 * 9). If another team in tier 2 goes 12-0, those 12 wins net an additional 3,720,000 (50,000 * 6.2 * 12). The tier 2 team thus earns 570,000 more than the tier 1 team.
More than that, the converse is that the alliance that faced the much stronger alliance suffers potentially brutal consequences. In our matchup, as an example, we did not obtain 3 boss kills. That never happens when we face an evenly matched alliance. It happened in this case, however, because the depth and strength of the alliance's defense we were facing created some awful roadblocks. The end result is that we lost crucial points based on a disproportionate matchup. Put simply, a plat 3 alliance should not be matched up with a war elite alliance the second match of the year.
Of course, I know this could sound like sour grapes, but I think it actually speaks more to another current flaw in the matchmaking system that should be addressed. Like alliances should be fighting against like alliances. This new strategy goes directly counter to that principle.
In the past, issues like this were eventually addressed. So, for example, prior alliance swapping issues in aq were addressed with black out periods. Piloting has supposedly been addressed with various penalties. It feels like this new strategy (as well as the strategy to deliberately lose in the off season to drop ratings), requires some form of solution. Perhaps one way this could be solved is by rewarding alliances that stay together with some form of bonus that negates any incentive to alliance swap. For example, any alliance that achieves P3 in back to back seasons gets some extra rewards. Same for each tier such that the incentive to stay in an alliance to get those rewards outweighs swapping.
Or another way is to alter the war rating formula to account for the prior season's standings. If an alliance is one that is "participation," then their aw multiplier should match, i.e., they start with a tier 22 multiplier.
The bottom line is that this new strategy feels like one that should not be rewarded because it runs directly counter to any notion of competitive balance.
