**Mastery Loadouts**
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
Comments
What time were you starting your wars? This set up should work out decently for EU players.
Thanks. I interpreted it as: 4 hours match making and then 20 hours of placement. Therefore wars start up to 24 hours after match making starts
It looks like I stupidly added 24 hours to the end of the match making window and not the start. Thanks.
You want it all @QuantumBob lol
Yes 7pm would be the earliest time 11pm the latest. Just hope your higher up the table for earlier start
You mean 11AM?
No. It is my (probably incorrect) understanding that match making starts at 3 pm PST and last 4 hours. Then we have 20 hours to place at the end of that window. Therefore wars start 24 hours after the start of the match making window. Hence, 3pm PST the following day. That's 11pm GMT.
Attack will start no earlier that 11am PST and it’s a 4 hour slot. That converts to 7pm-11pm gmt.
depends the time of year for me because in Spring/Summer UK moves to GMT+1so there is a period when its just 7 which is quite soon.
3pm PST (11 pm GMT) matchmaking starts. This last 4 hours and we do nothing. They just find suitable matches in that window. At the end of that window we have 20 hours to place defense. Then war begins. Essentially 24 hours after the beginning of the match making window and therefore 11 pm GMT......I think....haha
So there’s still a 4-hour window of a random time attack phase will start each war. That’s one of the key issues that wasn’t fixed in this update....
This comes down to a pretty simple principle that not everyone understands about alliance war match making. Under the old system, you would only match against other alliances seeking match at the same time. The good news is that this implied both you and your opponent kinda wanted to start wars at the same time, so you were good matches not just in terms of being similar in strength (ignoring match making glitches) but you were also good matches in terms of wanting to fight the war on the same schedule.
The problem is that choosing *when* you match implicitly chooses *who* you match. In other words, if my alliance wanted to start wars at 1pm Pacific and your alliance wanted to start wars at 3pm Pacific, we would likely never face each other. If we are tier 6 alliances, this isn't usually a big deal because there are at least dozens of other alliances of similar rating matching at those times. We are never going to face each other, but we still won't really know who we are facing out of all those possibilities.
But at the higher tiers, those numbers thin out fast. It was possible for alliances to deliberately choose to start matching at different times to avoid each other permanently. Consider: #1 and #2 could avoid each other throughout the entire season and never have to fight each other. This is a huge competitive advantage in terms of earning points. Neither of them has to face the alliance most likely to be able to beat them.
Under the old system, choosing "when" also chooses "who." The new system has to take away the choice of "when" to remove the possibility of manipulating the "who."
There are complex ways to try to put the choice back in, but none of them can really completely fix the problem. For example, the game can allow alliances to set a "preferred" start time, but that can only work if both alliances happen to pick a similar time. If they prefer radically different times, the game has to either pick one or try to split the difference which could make both alliances unhappy. And this requires different scheduling of the wars to allow for the variable times.
With this new adjustment, will Defensive Placement be 20 hours or 24 hours once we're matched? If it is kept at 20 hours, that means Attack could still start as early as 11:00AM PST. I think most would prefer 24 hours for placement once matched.
As many have written, these new times still don't help with alliances who have chosen the best time to start Matchmaking based on all of the life schedules in the alliance.
Not quite. When the game servers find a match, those two alliances IMMEDIATELY start their war with defense placement. That means while the servers are looking for matches between 3pm and 7pm Pacific, the very first match will start defense placing at 3pm, NOT 7pm. Their attack phase will start at 11am the next day. All other alliances will start at some time after 3pm, with their attack phases starting at some time after 11am. Kabam is asserting that all alliances will find a match (barring some outage or issue) by 7pm. That means defense placement can start anywhere between 3pm and 7pm, and attack phases can start anywhere between 11am and 3pm Pacific.
Matchmaking starts every cycle at 3pm Pacific. But alliances will be starting wars at different times based on when they find a match. What is certain is that from the moment you alliance finds a match, Defense Placement is *always* twenty hours from that moment (which will be some time ON OR AFTER 3pm Pacific), and Attack Phase is *always* twenty four hours long starting from end of defense placement phase.
Something like this: https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/741678/#Comment_741678
starts wont be the late, thats just the fixed window, in the three wars this past week, we were matched within 20 minutes of matchmaking starting