**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.

New Alliance Wars Matchmaking System & Season 8 Details

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Comments

  • HulksmasshhHulksmasshh Posts: 742 ★★★
    @Kabam Miike could we get a rough estimate of how far in war rating the system will reach to? For example would a 3000 rated alliance ever be matched with a 3300 or 2700 alliance if there are plenty available within 2900-3100 and so on. Should we expect to face the same allies multiple times a season if they tend to hover around similar war ratings?
  • DamianMPDamianMP Posts: 1
    You should implement a punishment in AW rating for those alliance who does not enlist in war. Theres a lot of alliance with no activity that affects the quantity of alliances in a Tier and not giving others alliance the opportunity of having a higher multiplier.
  • What's the cut off to have all members in your alliance to participate? Does it have to be before matchmaking or before enlistment?

    It will be before matchmaking. You can find a new recruit during Enlistment.

    When you say "enlistment" the enlistment phase for War #N occurs in large part *during* war #N-1. You can't replace a member during that window because an actual war is going on (well, you can, but that's not what players are concerned about).

    Really, the only safe window to swap a player gracefully appears to be during maintenance, not enlistment. Given the new system, I think it would be better if Kabam allows alliances to replace members during the defense placement window, so that if they join before attack phase starts they are free to place defenders and participate in the war.

    Of course, if you lose a player involuntarily you can replace them immediately, but from where are you going to recruit? Players actually in other alliances would not want to leave in the middle of a war or before they get their individual war rewards if possible. That might force alliances that lose a member to have to wait for the Tuesday/Wednesday maintenance window to find replacements willing to jump.
  • rwhackrwhack Posts: 1,047 ★★★
    edited February 2019
    V1PER1987 wrote: »
    Fabi1989 wrote: »
    Can a top Alliance matched again a other top Alliance multiple times in one Season?

    This Change is for the Most top Alliances Really Bad

    Poor guy. You might have to actually compete with someone on your level instead of steamrolling the lower alliances to stay on top. Tough life.

    Let’s see we matched KenOB, wah!, ASR, etc. who did you match that’s comparable that would justify a top 3 or masters finish? You ever watch sports?

    I guess mount Union college going undefeated against division III opponents would mean Alabama losing 1 game against division I would give Mount Union the national championship.

    @Kabam Miike tell me how this isn’t the new system.
  • @Kabam Miike could we get a rough estimate of how far in war rating the system will reach to? For example would a 3000 rated alliance ever be matched with a 3300 or 2700 alliance if there are plenty available within 2900-3100 and so on. Should we expect to face the same allies multiple times a season if they tend to hover around similar war ratings?

    The announcement seems to imply that "reach" is now moot. The system will start with the top rated alliance and find the closest match for it. If that closest match is 30 rating points away or 3000 rating points away, that's the match. The current system needs "ranges" to look because the current best match might not be an especially good one: it has to decide whether to take the current best match or wait for a potentially better one. But in the current system, the game always knows what the absolute best match will be, because it knows from the start what the ratings are for every alliance participating in that war. No better match is ever coming along.

    My guess is that when it comes to having a lot of alliances with identical ratings the game will match them all randomly. And unless you tie, you can't face the same alliance again because one of you will win and one will lose, except perhaps at the very top when #1 and #2 face each other and no one else catches up to the loser.

    It will be interesting to see if rematches are more or less common in the new system. We had one rematch in season six and so far one in season seven, happening basically as you'd expect: we lost the first one, won the next war, and because we went down and then up we were able to face the same alliance again (who won and then lost to also arrive at about the same rating). Since we both start matches at about the same time (which is how we matched in the first place) the odds of facing each other again are actually pretty good if we bounce rating (up/down or down/up) because there probably aren't all that many alliances with the same rating and looking at the exact same time. In the newer system we are less likely to face that same alliance again because now match making will be looking across more alliances. But perhaps at very high tiers this is reversed, and alliances might be more likely to see rematches because now the game has a better chance to find "best" matches.
  • SparkAlotSparkAlot Posts: 957 ★★★★
    While not a bad start, it needs tweaking @Kabam Miike .

    For starters, not all alliances have people in the same timezones. This is gonna cause huge problems.

    The fix is VERY easy though.

    Have everyone place defense like you outline. Have everyone opt-in to AW, as you have said, however, have a sliding 6 hour attack window, when the alliance can pick a more optimal time for THEM. Yes, alliances won't finish at the same time, but, who cares. The leaderboard scores will only be updated when BOTH alliances from the war are done.

    For this to work correctly, you can't lock champs in AW anymore, but, that is a small price to pay to have everyone play at a more reasonable time at their choosing.
  • SWGOH_MosDefSWGOH_MosDef Posts: 145
    I agree with @DNA3000 above. Like the changes overall (matchmaking games were the root of huge problems), but there is a major issue with regards to player movement between alliances and reward distribution / event timings.

    But I will say that the issues we're concerned with are fixable (depends on codebase how easily fixable)... Players COULD get the rewards for a war they participated in even if kicked mid-war. Players could get pro-rata % of rewards achieved in 3day alliance events even if kicked before they ended. Players COULD place defenders even if they joined after matchmaking. Kabam would just need to change a few things around. And frankly, I think a lot of those changes would actually make sense/be more fair. As it is currently, the coordination and timing around moving between new alliances, or recruiting others in, is a TON of effort and kind of a nightmare, and that doesn't even approach the nightmare that arises when folks get accidentally kicked or shadily replaced because an ally found someone better. People should get rewards based on what they participate in, and if that were the case from the get go, a lot of the stress around player movement would probably drop away.
  • SparkAlot wrote: »
    While not a bad start, it needs tweaking @Kabam Miike .

    For starters, not all alliances have people in the same timezones. This is gonna cause huge problems.

    The fix is VERY easy though.

    Have everyone place defense like you outline. Have everyone opt-in to AW, as you have said, however, have a sliding 6 hour attack window, when the alliance can pick a more optimal time for THEM. Yes, alliances won't finish at the same time, but, who cares. The leaderboard scores will only be updated when BOTH alliances from the war are done.

    For this to work correctly, you can't lock champs in AW anymore, but, that is a small price to pay to have everyone play at a more reasonable time at their choosing.

    It sounds easy, but this basic idea has been kicked around the forums since season one and this has been discussed previously. It is problematic to have that sliding window because there's no obvious place that time can come from. You can't shorten the attack phase. You could shorten the placement phase but then it has already been shortened by five hours for the match making calculations. An additional six hours means defense placement drops to only thirteen hours and now some alliances might not be able to place properly. You can't steal it from maintenance since match making itself occurs in a specific time: to distribute the maintenance time across all three wars requires shifting match making windows forward six hours, drifting them around during the day. That's probably less desirable so everything else must compress into the same time windows between match making.
  • Cranmer00Cranmer00 Posts: 528 ★★
    GREAT JOB


    Everyone complaining about start times matching up is rubbish

    Everyone has same AQ start time and have to link the exact same in map6 to take down nodes and everything works fine. PLUS YOU HAVE 3 different BGs.. if there is a scheduling conflict, rotate a player or two.

    This is the best way to do it fairly on that note.


    What I don’t get is same multiplier if that’s true,. This would make no sense as if we go 13-0 at plat 3 get 1st over the top guys facing eachother every war..

    But they most 100% should. Because the #1spot right now hasn’t faced a single alliance in the top 5. Happy that is fixed so we will know who the best alliance really is

  • Cranmer00Cranmer00 Posts: 528 ★★
    There are chats that master alliances participate in to not match eachother.. 6 hour slide window would defeat the purpose of this matchmaking fix.

    Do not change it.. alliances are split into 3 BGs, they run map 6 fine as it is.. there is no diff than having to log AW and do a couple fights. Everyone has 24 hours in a day to fight.
  • SparkAlotSparkAlot Posts: 957 ★★★★
    DNA3000 wrote: »
    SparkAlot wrote: »
    While not a bad start, it needs tweaking @Kabam Miike .

    For starters, not all alliances have people in the same timezones. This is gonna cause huge problems.

    The fix is VERY easy though.

    Have everyone place defense like you outline. Have everyone opt-in to AW, as you have said, however, have a sliding 6 hour attack window, when the alliance can pick a more optimal time for THEM. Yes, alliances won't finish at the same time, but, who cares. The leaderboard scores will only be updated when BOTH alliances from the war are done.

    For this to work correctly, you can't lock champs in AW anymore, but, that is a small price to pay to have everyone play at a more reasonable time at their choosing.

    It sounds easy, but this basic idea has been kicked around the forums since season one and this has been discussed previously. It is problematic to have that sliding window because there's no obvious place that time can come from. You can't shorten the attack phase. You could shorten the placement phase but then it has already been shortened by five hours for the match making calculations. An additional six hours means defense placement drops to only thirteen hours and now some alliances might not be able to place properly. You can't steal it from maintenance since match making itself occurs in a specific time: to distribute the maintenance time across all three wars requires shifting match making windows forward six hours, drifting them around during the day. That's probably less desirable so everything else must compress into the same time windows between match making.

    No, you are missing the point, nothing is shortened here at all. The ending time can change though, but, that is fine as long as the champs aren't locked in AW, and you can still place AW defenders on time.

    Think of it like a queue, and for the next game, you place them as you normally would, but that match wouldn't go live. It is a different map than the current one you are playing.

    Basically a "Placement for upcoming game" button would appear, and that hops to the new map, and place like you normally would.
  • Maximus_SpankersonMaximus_Spankerson Posts: 445 ★★
    Could you please go into constraints the system will have. Will it be possible for us to play the same alliance 3 times a week? Will it take previous matches / wins / losses into account ?
  • becauseicantbecauseicant Posts: 412 ★★★
    edited February 2019
    Good start and it's nice to see you guys trying to address some of the problems with AW and matchmaking. This is gonna come off super salty but if you're going to acknowledge people for guessing the solution or helping you guys come up with the solution it should really be the people who have been suggesting this idea 7+ months ago and I'm sure it was brought up even before that. People have spent hours on end posting ideas and suggestions so any indication that they've helped you shape a better game would go a long way to keeping those people motivated and appreciated.
  • Vale84Vale84 Posts: 308 ★★★
    Paging @Lagacy: You were pretty close! Reading minds over there...

    IM glad MANY of the suggestion i made a month ago or so were implemented. Very satisfied.

    ALtho.

    Please remove the +/- rating effect during placement phase, that too is easy to add and will prevent allies fishing for opponents defense with 20 hr time to get them in the bag. It would be very hard to obtain defences from friendly allies if they're head on inside their own war.

    That would be the last nail in the coffin for collusion.

    Well done.
  • Carmel1Carmel1 Posts: 624 ★★★
    What's the cut off to have all members in your alliance to participate? Does it have to be before matchmaking or before enlistment?

    It will be before matchmaking. You can find a new recruit during Enlistment.

    Matchmaking start at 3PM PST and new members need to join until that time in order to participate the war, but sometimes AQ and SA rewards are release later than that. why not changing the time to 5-6 PM?
  • Could we have 30 minute (or no energy requirements) so we can make it easier to coordinate with TZ shifted alliance members? Seems a shame to have to see good game friends depart simply because they can’t be on when people need them to be.
  • MaatManMaatMan Posts: 958 ★★★
    My only question is exactly how will the matchmaking work?
    Wat determines you opponent being a suitibale match?
    Cus as we have seen two alliances with same alliance rating can be very different strengths when it comes to war. Due to peeps selling / not ranking champs.
    Can you please elaborate as a alot of people will be wondering the same thing.
    @Kabam Miike
  • JediJones77JediJones77 Posts: 146
    Aren't there going to be people in a time zone where this fixed ending time happens to be at 4 in the morning? I'm not quite sure how much of a range in start/end times are possible now, but it seems like it's about 6 hours or so. Some people are going to be really stung by this new lack of flexibility.

    Since the matching is done with even more advance time now, it doesn't seem like it was necessary to give everyone the same starting and ending time. That can't be a plus for Kabam's servers either, where activity is now going to spike at the exact same time.

    Why don't they let people choose their own start time for each war when they enlist, within a defined range?
  • nst43437nst43437 Posts: 24
    Have to come with new plan for the Aw getting tied and not awarding any points to any alliances? and also not awarding the rewards!!.
    will we have to same systems for aw getting tie? @Kabam Miike
  • DraenathDraenath Posts: 237
    Wow, there is some real hyperbole in this thread about how timezones are going to effect people...
  • edited February 2019
    Good start and it's nice to see you guys trying to address some of the problems with AW and matchmaking. This is gonna come off super salty but if you're going to acknowledge people for guessing the solution or helping you guys come up with the solution it should really be the people who have been suggesting this idea 7+ months ago and I'm sure it was brought up even before that. People have spent hours on end posting ideas and suggestions so any indication that they've helped you shape a better game would go a long way to keeping those people motivated and appreciated.

    That's actually a great point! We've heard many ideas like this from our players for quite some time now. We started working on this new form of Matchmaking just after Alliance Wars seasons started, and even then we'd heard of something like this from many of our Players.

    This kind of system isn't built and implemented in just a few months though, and we'd gone back and forth on how to do it, and when we'd have the capacity to do it.

    When I called out @Lagacy in that post for coming close, it's because he just happened to put out a video yesterday that was something pretty close to this. Check it out here and you can see just how close he was.

    Our players gave us a lot of great input on this one, so we want to thank you all for your suggestions, and look forward to seeing what you guys come up with next!
  • SparkAlot wrote: »
    DNA3000 wrote: »
    SparkAlot wrote: »
    While not a bad start, it needs tweaking @Kabam Miike .

    For starters, not all alliances have people in the same timezones. This is gonna cause huge problems.

    The fix is VERY easy though.

    Have everyone place defense like you outline. Have everyone opt-in to AW, as you have said, however, have a sliding 6 hour attack window, when the alliance can pick a more optimal time for THEM. Yes, alliances won't finish at the same time, but, who cares. The leaderboard scores will only be updated when BOTH alliances from the war are done.

    For this to work correctly, you can't lock champs in AW anymore, but, that is a small price to pay to have everyone play at a more reasonable time at their choosing.

    It sounds easy, but this basic idea has been kicked around the forums since season one and this has been discussed previously. It is problematic to have that sliding window because there's no obvious place that time can come from. You can't shorten the attack phase. You could shorten the placement phase but then it has already been shortened by five hours for the match making calculations. An additional six hours means defense placement drops to only thirteen hours and now some alliances might not be able to place properly. You can't steal it from maintenance since match making itself occurs in a specific time: to distribute the maintenance time across all three wars requires shifting match making windows forward six hours, drifting them around during the day. That's probably less desirable so everything else must compress into the same time windows between match making.

    No, you are missing the point, nothing is shortened here at all. The ending time can change though, but, that is fine as long as the champs aren't locked in AW, and you can still place AW defenders on time.

    Think of it like a queue, and for the next game, you place them as you normally would, but that match wouldn't go live. It is a different map than the current one you are playing.

    Basically a "Placement for upcoming game" button would appear, and that hops to the new map, and place like you normally would.

    I'm presuming that the devs cannot allow anyone to be actually fighting a war while match making itself happens. When match making begins, all wars must end. And the primary reason is that match making requires knowing what the alliance's war rating is, and you won't know what the correct war rating will be for that match if that alliance is still in the middle of the war that determines that rating.
  • @Kabam Miike what are the "rewards" of the "Bye" if an Alliance gets it?

    The win AW awards? The lose AW awards?

    And how about points??? What will be given? Just the 50k plus the 20k for each bg?

    Please explain this part.

    On the rest, I believe you have found a good way to ensure a good matchmaking system.


    AequitasDominus
  • @Kabam Miike what are the "rewards" of the "Bye" if an Alliance gets it?

    The win AW awards? The lose AW awards?

    And how about points??? What will be given? Just the 50k plus the 20k for each bg?

    Please explain this part.

    Since at most three alliances can get the bye (one for one BG war, one for two BG war, one for three BG war), and since they will be matching from top to bottom, the alliance that gets the bye will be some tiny Stone bracket-inhabiting alliance that basically wins the lottery. A very tiny lottery. Since you can only win the bye once, it will, based on my data on brackets, propel a bottom dwelling Stone 3 or Participation alliance perhaps into Stone 1 or maybe Bronze 3 even if they got full points (i.e. a perfect completion plus win bonus).

    In other words, it will be a small jackpot for some alliance that barely participates in war, but otherwise is unlikely to affect the rewards for anyone else by any significant amount.
  • ctp1223ctp1223 Posts: 290
    I see a few people have commented about time zone issues. I don't think it is a big deal, however, I do think that that and the problem of linked nodes come into play here.

    Please consider removing some, if not all, of the linked nodes so people aren't waiting for a long time, or increase the energy cap. I understand that linked nodes assist with your goal of <100% completion rate for AW, but it is more of an annoyance than anything else. If I am keeping your goal in mind, I will say that there is absolutely no point in linked the first tiles of each path on the map.
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