**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

  • RC51RC51 Posts: 194
    edited February 2019
    I updated my little sheet to reflect these changes (this is a link to a very very wide Google Sheet): https://tiny.cc/AW2019

    But my UTC/GMT/DST calculations are probably off for some places because...DST sucks. So, depending on where you're at, I might have your times off by +/- 1-2 hrs.
  • QuantumBobQuantumBob Posts: 162
    @DNA3000 Oh, ok. That was my original understanding before your first reply...except I foolishly added 24 hours to the end of the window to find the latest start time whereas I should have added 20 or added 24 to the start. Haha
  • QuantumBobQuantumBob Posts: 162
    @DNA3000 Yes, that does seem like a better system. Hope Kabam are listening haha
  • QuantumBob wrote: »
    @DNA3000 . Thank you again. Never considered how easy it could have been to manipulate match ups in the old system for those teams right at the top where tiers consist of only a handful of alliances. Out of interest, as you seem to have a good handle on how this operates, what do you feel would be the ideal solution? Also, what about tanking? If the goal to ensure fairer matches and more competitive wars then doesn't tanking in the off season defeat the point of all this? I personally would like to see war rating "locked in" in-between seasons.

    That's good and bad. Good to prevent tanking, bad as it would prevent lower Alliances from advancing during the off season. You can't prevent everything, but I do believe there's more to the matchmaking process than JUST war rating. Overall rating, and Prestige I think (and hope) are taken into consideration. With the new system it minimizes acts of collusion while giving all Alliances more matches to work with in general. As @DNA3000 mentioned, with the previous system, you were limited by your start time of matchmaking to whom you'd match with. Now it's gonna be a pool working from the top down. With Alliances constantly in a state of change the likelihood you'll face the same Alliance twice is minimal from what I can tell. For example, your Alliance wins the war, gains X amount of war rating and spikes you up 1 tier. No way you'd face the last Alliance (theoretically anyway) again as your war ratings are now further apart and would be in different tiers. Again, in theory. I cannot say this beyond a shadow of a doubt as I do not know the inner workings of the matchmaking system. From what I can tell, this is what they're aiming for.

    As there were CLEAR issues with matches being VERY lopsided, it was mentioned they're working on a solution to such. How exactly that will be achieved will likely be a mystery to us. Hopefully, once they work the kinks out of this system, lopsided matches will be a thing of the past. War rating isn't everything, nor is overall rating. A combination of war rate, overall rate, AND Alliance Prestige being taken into consideration would theoretically achieve the best possible matches. Also the last few wars' performance wise would be ideal to be taken into consideration. Our last match was VERY close (a perfect +49 for the win, -49 for the loss). Unfortunately, due to the timing issues, we lost as 1 BG didn't drop the Boss as they all weren't awake. We beat them in attack bonus AND diversity so we easily could have won provided the timing wasn't shifted so heavily. The upcoming timing is as close to the old system as we'll likely get with this new iteration of matchmaking. Personally, I'm good with it. Hopefully, it will be good for the majority. We shall see.

    Thanks for the update @Kabam Miike . Glad we're getting another war cycle to test/adjust to these changes. Can you clarify whether the newest iteration of matchmaking will make the concept of tanking useless? Will those at the top face other top Alliances despite having switched to a 'shell' Alliance due to other factors that clearly make them stronger? I know it's tough to say, but would you say in theory this should be handled with this new system? If you cannot say for whatever reason, I can respect that. Although it would be great to hear it and would likely make those 'shell' Alliances a thing of the past. Gaming the system is rather sad when overall it SHOULD come down to overall skill/experience coupled with overall average progression of the Alliance members.
  • Cranmer00Cranmer00 Posts: 528 ★★
    NEW WAR TIME IS HORRIBLE

    everyone whining like babies has made it worse.. GOD FORBID the AQ and AW start the same time..m
  • LeNoirFaineantLeNoirFaineant Posts: 8,638 ★★★★★
    Cranmer00 wrote: »
    NEW WAR TIME IS HORRIBLE

    everyone whining like babies has made it worse.. GOD FORBID the AQ and AW start the same time..m

    It's horrible that wars start when they always started?
  • Cranmer00 wrote: »
    NEW WAR TIME IS HORRIBLE

    everyone whining like babies has made it worse.. GOD FORBID the AQ and AW start the same time..m

    Actually, the new system has the potential to do exactly that. Can start anywhere from 1 hour before AQ ends too 3 hours after. AQ starts/ends at 3 PM EST currently. New system will start war anytime between 2 PM EST to 6 PM EST. Seeing as how 3 PM falls into that time frame, you'd think you would be happy. Everyone seems to forget that Placement is only 20 hours long. So 20 hours from the time you get matched, will your attack phase start.
  • Swank777Swank777 Posts: 64
    Summoners,

    Thank you for all of your feedback on our new Matchmaking system. We have a few fixes that we are going to be implementing to address some of your concerns, and bugs that have been discovered.

    Matchmaking Time
    While we understand that any time that we choose for matchmaking will make it difficult for one group of Summoners or another based on their location, we are going to move the matchmaking window back by 4 hours. The new Matchmaking Window will be from 3pm-7pm PST. This also means changes to the Enlistment Periods.

    Here is the new schedule for the Matchmaking phase:
    • Wednesday at 3pm - 7pm PST
    • Friday at 3pm - 7pm PST
    • Sunday at 3pm - 7pm PST

    Here is the new schedule for the Enlistment Periods:
    • Sunday at 7pm - Wednesday at 3pm PST
    • Wednesday at 7pm PST - Friday at 3pm PST
    • Friday at 7pm - Sunday at 3pm PST

    The reasoning for this window is to align is with our previous matchmaking times. This way, no Alliance will enter their Attack phase earlier than it used to be possible (11 am PST). The system will also correctly go from Top down, meaning the top alliances will be matched first.

    This change will take effect Wednesday, February 20th.

    Match Quality
    We have seen from a number of you that you are still being matched unfairly and against Alliances that are not a fair fight. We are investigating the cause of this issue and are working to improve the quality of matches as soon as we can.

    Season 8 Delay
    Because we want to ensure that we have fixed the issue regarding match quality, we will be delaying the start of Season 8 by 1 week,

    Alliance Wars Season 8 will commence on February 27th.

    Recruiting during Enlistment Period
    As we previously mentioned, we are working on a fix for an issue where new recruits are not able to join the next war, despite joining before Matchmaking. We are working on a fix for this, and plan to have it in place before the start of Matchmaking on Wednesday, February 20th.

    Thank you all for your patience, and for you feedback. We’re still going to be analyzing data and collecting more feedback during the next few wars, and will adjust further if necessary.

    Just scrap this whole new system that we all hate. What don't you get this whole new system 100% sucks. The old system was better in every way you can think of. You have had 0 positive feedback since changing it. You are ruining war bottom line. Just change it back.
  • Swank777Swank777 Posts: 64
    If war was your favorite part of this game, you know hate this game and are looking for a new game and there is 0 chance you ever spend $ on this game again. 32 pages and over 900 comments of this sucks/change it back and kabam thinks a adjustment or 2 will work. How bout no it completely sucks just change it back.
  • MaatManMaatMan Posts: 958 ★★★
    @Kabam Miike can you guys please look at increasing the period of time stuff will stay in stash.

    my stash currently has 10% attack boosts (grinded 7hr solo events ready for season start)
    alliance potions (only a few)
    war boosts.
    stuff that i was beginning to stockpile ready for war season.
    now stuff will expire before season starts.

    not asking for much just can we please extent the time on items by 7 days so they will be read for season start still.
  • Markjv81Markjv81 Posts: 1,003 ★★★★
    Cranmer00 wrote: »
    NEW WAR TIME IS HORRIBLE

    everyone whining like babies has made it worse.. GOD FORBID the AQ and AW start the same time..m

    It's horrible that wars start when they always started?

    This simply isn’t true, my alliances wars never started at 3am my time.
  • Originally wars started anywhere between 11 AM PST to 7 PM PST. That was the 8 hour window to work inside if you wanted to participate in all 3 wars for the cycle. They've cut it in half now. Earliest a war could start now is 11 AM PST and the latest could be 3 PM PST. What timezone are you in @Markjv81 ?? With the 1st iteration, wars were starting earlier than ever before. This change brings it damn close to the old time.
  • LeNoirFaineantLeNoirFaineant Posts: 8,638 ★★★★★
    Markjv81 wrote: »
    Cranmer00 wrote: »
    NEW WAR TIME IS HORRIBLE

    everyone whining like babies has made it worse.. GOD FORBID the AQ and AW start the same time..m

    It's horrible that wars start when they always started?

    This simply isn’t true, my alliances wars never started at 3am my time.

    It starts at the same time it was possible to start wars previously or up to 4 hours later. How is that worse than starting 4 hours before wars used to start?
  • Markjv81Markjv81 Posts: 1,003 ★★★★
    Never said it was worse, simply said your statement about wars now starting at the same time is false. It might be true for you but not everyone, my wars will now start up to 5 hours earlier than what we use to choose to start.

    Funny how I’ll be expected to adapt to that but Americans adapting to 4hours earlier was simply “unplayable”.
  • Markjv81Markjv81 Posts: 1,003 ★★★★
    Originally wars started anywhere between 11 AM PST to 7 PM PST. That was the 8 hour window to work inside if you wanted to participate in all 3 wars for the cycle. They've cut it in half now. Earliest a war could start now is 11 AM PST and the latest could be 3 PM PST. What timezone are you in @Markjv81 ?? With the 1st iteration, wars were starting earlier than ever before. This change brings it damn close to the old time.

    Im +8, my wars use to start between 7-8am now will be 3-7am. I usually wake at 5:30am so if our war starts before that time I’ll now miss anywhere up to the last 7 hours of attack phase.
  • MaatManMaatMan Posts: 958 ★★★
    fixed time still sucks regardless. some will like it some wont.
    i mean we started our wars pretty much at the end of this new window being 10am local time for me.
    now we may have one start at 6am local time.
    that means if we dont get the war done wen i go to bed, i gotta set an alarm to wake up early for AW. all i can do is hope we get it done before i go to bed.
    people say the timing works for AQ so its gotta work for AW. but i say Linked nodes.
    my map5 bg is not always finished when i go to bed. but i finish my path and others finish it. i never have to wake early to finish it.
    war however if i am linked when i go to bed. then i may have to wake early to finish it.

    its never gunna work properly for everyone being fixed time.
    sometimes will work better than others for some people.
    but overall fixed time will always cause issues for some.
  • LeNoirFaineantLeNoirFaineant Posts: 8,638 ★★★★★
    Markjv81 wrote: »
    Never said it was worse, simply said your statement about wars now starting at the same time is false. It might be true for you but not everyone, my wars will now start up to 5 hours earlier than what we use to choose to start.

    Funny how I’ll be expected to adapt to that but Americans adapting to 4hours earlier was simply “unplayable”.

    Fair enough. My post was in response to someone who said it was worse. To be honest, we started wars later than these will probably start to accommodate players in Australia and New Zealand. There is no question that the old system was better for alliances in terms of balancing schedules than what we have now but this is at least reasonable.
  • KaptainKaptain Posts: 48
    @Kabam Miike Thanks for attempting to adjust the horrible changes that were made last week. I would like to point out that adjusting the times doesn’t really address the main problem, which is that every alliance is different and allowing us to pick the start times for AW is the biggest thing that was taken away. You have forced a lot of alliances to deprioritize alliance war which will probably affect your bottom line...AW is no longer important enough to waste units or even real money on.
  • Markjv81Markjv81 Posts: 1,003 ★★★★
    And on second thoughts it is worse, missing up to 7hours at the end of war is worse than only 1 or 2.
  • HamedSOHamedSO Posts: 139
    edited February 2019
    New schedule and enlistment time sound good @Kabam Miike thanks for the information! But like discussed before, the system could be better if every alliance can pick up its own time. Just like AQ.
  • KpatrixKpatrix Posts: 1,055 ★★★
    Why do alliances need to fight in real time ? You could keep the matchmaking system as is, then allow alliances 24 hours to complete the map, starting at a time of their choosing. It may mean delayed results, but as long as teams finish in the window allowed for matchmaking it should be fine.

    Alliances could start attack anytime between say 11am cst and 5 pm cst for example, which is 2 hours less than the original window we had for matchmaking, and that should allow plenty of time for the algorithm to work.

    They could even introduce a complete new schedule of a day for defence, a day for attack, a day off, and repeat. It may not be perfect, but it would accomplish two things: alliances get to pick their attack time frame and kabam gets to eliminate matchmaking manipulation.

    Seasons would still be comprised of 12 wars, it would just take a little longer. Off weeks could be eliminated completely, so no more tanking.
  • With Alliances constantly in a state of change the likelihood you'll face the same Alliance twice is minimal from what I can tell. For example, your Alliance wins the war, gains X amount of war rating and spikes you up 1 tier. No way you'd face the last Alliance (theoretically anyway) again as your war ratings are now further apart and would be in different tiers.

    In practice the odds of facing the same alliance twice is low, but maybe not as low as someone might guess. In season six we faced the same alliance twice in tier 7, and then in season seven we faced the same alliance twice in tier 6. Both times it happened in exactly the same way. We faced the alliance and lost to them. Then in the next war we faced a different alliance and won against them. And then in the next war we faced that same previous alliance again - because we lost then won, while they won then lost. So both of us were basically back to the same rating (within six ratings points the first time, and two ratings points the second time).

    Not only were we both at about the same rating, but of course we were both looking for match at virtually the same time both times - a few minutes later than when we first faced them (they probably were in the same position timing-wise due to how wars work). Both tier 6 and tier 7 contain about 2% of all rated alliances. It is difficult to say how many alliances are counted for tiering, and it is difficult to know how Kabam really computes these percentages in general (it might not actually be mathematically 2% for various reasons) but a reasonable guess is that this 2% number represents something on the order of 600 to 1000 alliances. And let's say that most matches used to happen on a time scale of five to ten minutes, and most alliances used to match within the six hours between 11am and 5pm Pacific. That means there are 72 slices of five minute windows in that period, and actually on average there could be as few as ten to fifteen alliances within your entire war tier searching at that moment in time.

    That's actually rather interestingly in rough agreement with the one out of twelve repeat opponents we've seen in the last two seasons. It will be interesting to see whether this changes under the new matching system.
  • Cranmer00 wrote: »
    NEW WAR TIME IS HORRIBLE

    everyone whining like babies has made it worse.. GOD FORBID the AQ and AW start the same time..m

    It's horrible that wars start when they always started?

    Just to be clear, wars will now start on or probably fairly close to the earliest time they originally could start. Alliances were picking start times anywhere from 11am Pacific to probably 5pm Pacific. I think 5pm Pacific was pushing the envelope on not finding a match at all, but we know there was a significant percentage of alliances going that deep (mutamatt's analysis showed that). Such an alliance could be starting anywhere from two to six hours earlier than they were originally.

    The 11am to 3pm start time window doesn't directly match everyone's original start time. There is no window that does that. It is the window most likely to match the most alliances' original start times by the closest cumulative amount (as I think about it, 12pm to 4pm would have probably been closer, but only by a little: it would make some alliances start a little later, and most somewhat earlier, reducing the total amount of discrepancy by a bit).
  • Tasty_Yum_YumsTasty_Yum_Yums Posts: 444 ★★★
    Kpatrix wrote: »
    Why do alliances need to fight in real time ? You could keep the matchmaking system as is, then allow alliances 24 hours to complete the map, starting at a time of their choosing. It may mean delayed results, but as long as teams finish in the window allowed for matchmaking it should be fine.

    Alliances could start attack anytime between say 11am cst and 5 pm cst for example, which is 2 hours less than the original window we had for matchmaking, and that should allow plenty of time for the algorithm to work.

    They could even introduce a complete new schedule of a day for defence, a day for attack, a day off, and repeat. It may not be perfect, but it would accomplish two things: alliances get to pick their attack time frame and kabam gets to eliminate matchmaking manipulation.

    Seasons would still be comprised of 12 wars, it would just take a little longer. Off weeks could be eliminated completely, so no more tanking.

    The alliance that starts the war later has a clear advantage. Many wars come down to the last 10-20 fights. Knowing if you have a chance to win the war determines if you’re going to use items or not.
  • Cranmer00 wrote: »
    NEW WAR TIME IS HORRIBLE

    everyone whining like babies has made it worse.. GOD FORBID the AQ and AW start the same time..m

    This complaint sounds like you either did not understand what the new system originally did, or don't understand what it does now. True, matchmaking used to start right around when AQ started, but I doubt if anyone cares when match making started. Under the old system, when you matched was also when you started placing defenders and when you started attacking in war and when war ended. The moment you started looking for match was important for that reason.

    But under the new system it is the game servers that look for matches for everyone, players no longer have that control. And moreover, when match making starts is not when war attack phase starts. Attack phase now starts four hours earlier than the moment your alliance finds a match. This means to keep the start of *attack* roughly the same as it used to be before, matchmaking has to start four hours later than that. Which is what the latest revision does.
  • KpatrixKpatrix Posts: 1,055 ★★★
    Kpatrix wrote: »
    Why do alliances need to fight in real time ? You could keep the matchmaking system as is, then allow alliances 24 hours to complete the map, starting at a time of their choosing. It may mean delayed results, but as long as teams finish in the window allowed for matchmaking it should be fine.

    Alliances could start attack anytime between say 11am cst and 5 pm cst for example, which is 2 hours less than the original window we had for matchmaking, and that should allow plenty of time for the algorithm to work.

    They could even introduce a complete new schedule of a day for defence, a day for attack, a day off, and repeat. It may not be perfect, but it would accomplish two things: alliances get to pick their attack time frame and kabam gets to eliminate matchmaking manipulation.

    Seasons would still be comprised of 12 wars, it would just take a little longer. Off weeks could be eliminated completely, so no more tanking.

    The alliance that starts the war later has a clear advantage. Many wars come down to the last 10-20 fights. Knowing if you have a chance to win the war determines if you’re going to use items or not.

    Does it really though ? Most of the time we are fighting for overall season points, everyone wants to maximize them as much as possible, win or lose. It may take out some of the excitement at the end, but the goal remains the same.

    Sure, if you are safely inside your bracket with no chance to move up you may strategize and not make that push, but you can still make that choice now. Or maybe it could be a double blind war, where each bg only gets to see the results once they clear the boss.

    Regardless, there are going to be some who don't like the system and want to go back to the way it was before. I'm just trying to think of ways we can have control of our start times while removing ways to manipulate it.
  • xNigxNig Posts: 7,221 ★★★★★
    Cranmer00 wrote: »
    NEW WAR TIME IS HORRIBLE

    everyone whining like babies has made it worse.. GOD FORBID the AQ and AW start the same time..m

    Weren’t you the one who said people have 24 hours to attack regardless?

  • Tasty_Yum_YumsTasty_Yum_Yums Posts: 444 ★★★
    Kpatrix wrote: »
    Kpatrix wrote: »
    Why do alliances need to fight in real time ? You could keep the matchmaking system as is, then allow alliances 24 hours to complete the map, starting at a time of their choosing. It may mean delayed results, but as long as teams finish in the window allowed for matchmaking it should be fine.

    Alliances could start attack anytime between say 11am cst and 5 pm cst for example, which is 2 hours less than the original window we had for matchmaking, and that should allow plenty of time for the algorithm to work.

    They could even introduce a complete new schedule of a day for defence, a day for attack, a day off, and repeat. It may not be perfect, but it would accomplish two things: alliances get to pick their attack time frame and kabam gets to eliminate matchmaking manipulation.

    Seasons would still be comprised of 12 wars, it would just take a little longer. Off weeks could be eliminated completely, so no more tanking.

    The alliance that starts the war later has a clear advantage. Many wars come down to the last 10-20 fights. Knowing if you have a chance to win the war determines if you’re going to use items or not.

    Does it really though ? Most of the time we are fighting for overall season points, everyone wants to maximize them as much as possible, win or lose. It may take out some of the excitement at the end, but the goal remains the same.

    Sure, if you are safely inside your bracket with no chance to move up you may strategize and not make that push, but you can still make that choice now. Or maybe it could be a double blind war, where each bg only gets to see the results once they clear the boss.

    Regardless, there are going to be some who don't like the system and want to go back to the way it was before. I'm just trying to think of ways we can have control of our start times while removing ways to manipulate it.

    I’m not against your efforts to come up with suggestions to better the current system. I’m just pointing out why it would not be a beneficial change.

    Personally, I’d like to see alliances being able to choose “maps” where they can get multipliers based on the difficulty.

    Map1 - 30 min timers, all defenders revealed; .75x standard score
    Map2 - standard AW; no multiplier
    Map3 - global buff active; 1.2 x multiplier
    Map4 - defense synergies active; 1.4 multiplier
    Map5 - global buff and defense synergy active; 1.6x multiplier

    This would alleviate kabam needing to create defensive synergy icons/descriptions.

    This would allow alliances the ability to gain more points to jump up to the next tier. On the other hand, this would allow alliances to take it easier if they have a member that cannot join for real world reasons and not have to replace him/her.

    Maps would be not be dependent of opponent map selection (opposing alliances could chose different maps while facing each other).
  • Tasty_Yum_YumsTasty_Yum_Yums Posts: 444 ★★★
    Does it really though ? Most of the time we are fighting for overall season points, everyone wants to maximize them as much as possible, win or lose. It may take out some of the excitement at the end, but the goal remains the same.

    Sure, if you are safely inside your bracket with no chance to move up you may strategize and not make that push, but you can still make that choice now. Or maybe it could be a double blind war, where each bg only gets to see the results once they clear the boss.

    Regardless, there are going to be some who don't like the system and want to go back to the way it was before. I'm just trying to think of ways we can have control of our start times while removing ways to manipulate it. [/quote]

    I’m not against your efforts to come up with suggestions to better the current system. I’m just pointing out why it would not be a beneficial change.

    Personally, I’d like to see alliances being able to choose “maps” where they can get multipliers based on the difficulty.

    Map1 - 30 min timers, all defenders revealed; .75x standard score
    Map2 - standard AW; no multiplier
    Map3 - global buff active; 1.2 x multiplier
    Map4 - defense synergies active; 1.4 multiplier
    Map5 - global buff and defense synergy active; 1.6x multiplier

    This would alleviate kabam needing to create defensive synergy icons/descriptions.

    This would allow alliances the ability to gain more points to jump up to the next tier. On the other hand, this would allow alliances to take it easier if they have a member that cannot join for real world reasons and not have to replace him/her.

    Maps would be not be dependent of opponent map selection (opposing alliances could choose different maps while facing each other).
  • Tasty_Yum_YumsTasty_Yum_Yums Posts: 444 ★★★
    Regardless, there are going to be some who don't like the system and want to go back to the way it was before. I'm just trying to think of ways we can have control of our start times while removing ways to manipulate it. [/quote]

    I’m not against your efforts to come up with suggestions to better the current system. I’m just pointing out why it would not be a beneficial change.

    Personally, I’d like to see alliances being able to choose “maps” where they can get multipliers based on the difficulty.

    Map1 - 30 min timers, all defenders revealed; .75x standard score
    Map2 - standard AW; no multiplier
    Map3 - global buff active; 1.2 x multiplier
    Map4 - defense synergies active; 1.4 multiplier
    Map5 - global buff and defense synergy active; 1.6x multiplier

    This would alleviate kabam needing to create defensive synergy icons/descriptions.

    This would allow alliances the ability to gain more points to jump up to the next tier. On the other hand, this would allow alliances to take it easier if they have a member that cannot join for real world reasons and not have to replace him/her.

    Maps would be not be dependent of opponent map selection (opposing alliances could choose different maps while facing each other).
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