15.0 Alliance Wars Update [UPDATED: November 7th - 11:05 PT)
Kabam Miike
Moderator Moderator › Posts: 8,269
Greetings Summoners!
It’s been over a year now since we first introduced Alliance Wars, and since then, much has changed in the Contest. From countless new Champions, to new Buffs, and a whole new way to traverse the map, the Contest has come a long way.
Now, it’s time for Alliance Wars to start to catch up to all of the progress and new content that has come along over the last year.
It’s time for a Shakeup!
A Brand New Map
This is definitely the biggest change coming to Alliance Wars! The new map takes advantage of many new developments that have been made in the Contest lately, and offers Summoners more freedom than they are used to in Alliance Wars. Here’s a quick rundown:
Portals have been added to the Alliance Wars Map!
One of our goals with the new Map was to give Summoners greater control over their movement in Alliance Wars, and portals help do just that! Portals will allow Summoners to move around the map more freely, allowing you to help out Alliance Mates that are in trouble, or to move away from a section that you weren’t totally prepared for.
A Bigger Map, Less Linked Nodes, and shorter Energy Refresh Times!
The new map is roughly 1.5x larger than the previous map, but now features 60 minute energy timers, just like Alliance Quests! We’ve also reduced the amount of Linked Nodes that you’ll be encountering. Our goal with this change was to increase the amount of fights you’ll be able to participate in before waiting for an Alliance Mate to unblock your path.
Points for exploration have been reduced from 450 per node to 300 per node, so as to be roughly equal to before.
Changing the Status Quo
Up until now, you’ve probably gotten pretty used to finding the more manageable fights towards the center of the map, with the more difficult fights occurring towards the outer edges of the Map, but not anymore! Now, you’ll find that the further from the center of the map you are, the easier the Buffs and Nodes become. Additionally, the closer you get to the boss, the more difficult the skirmishes will become!
You’ll also find that instead of clearing the center lanes first, to open up the outer lanes, you’ll now want to clear the outer nodes before attempting to fight the tougher fights in the center.
More Minibosses!
We’re upping the amount of Minibosses! Get ready to face off against 5 Minibosses before you want to start your fight against the Boss!
New Buffs!
Another goal we had with this new map was to play up Champion Archetypes, so be ready for more nodes like Enhanced Poison, and Enhanced Energy Damage! This should also help to increase the diversity of Champions that you encounter on the Map.
We’ve also simplified some buffs and added them together. Instead of one node featuring a 50% Champion Boost, as well as a %100 Champion boost, these will be combined into a singular %150 Champion Boost.
Goodbye to some old Nodes!
This is one that we know many of you have been waiting to hear… We’ve removed all instances of Thorns and Slashed Tires across every difficulty level!
More Information to Help Make Decisions!
To give Summoners the ability to make better informed decisions on what paths they’ll be taking, and who they’ll be matched up against, we’re cutting down on what information is hidden about potential opponents. Now, even on the most difficult levels of Alliance Wars, you will always at least be able to see the Class of the opponents you’ll be facing.
Skirmish Rewards!
Introducing, Skirmish Rewards! After completing an Alliance War, you’ll receive an in game mail message that includes the stats for all of your Alliance Mates with their performance in that War, and a small chunk of gold for each kill earned by an attacker, or defender!
Changes to Scoring Methods
As we said above, one of our major goals with this iteration of Alliance Wars was to promote a wider cast of Defenders that you’ll encounter, instead of the same Champions over and over again. In addition to promoting this with the new nodes that will boost certain attributes like Energy Damage or Bleed, we’re introducing a brand new way to earn points in Alliance Wars.
Introducing, Defender Diversity points! Defender Diversity points are awarded to Alliances for bringing in unique Champions as Defenders. You will be awarded a small amount of points for each unique Champion your Alliance places as a Defender across all of your Battlegroups. Remember, this isn’t just for every Battlegroup… All of your Battlegroups are counted! Remember, a 4-Star Hulk and a 5-Star Hulk both count as The Hulk, and are not unique!
This scoring system will not award large amounts of points, and will act more as a tiebreaker than a game changer.
That’s not all though, we’re also making a major change to a scoring method that you’re all used to. We’re now removing points for received for Defender Kills, and increasing the points received for Attacker Kills! The goal of this change was to encourage Summoners to continue their assault on the opposing Alliance, without having to worry about giving them more points, and to avoid that feeling of defeat after only trying one fight and being beaten.
You’ll still want to make sure you’re bringing in your best Defenders though, as now, wins and losses can hinge on Exploration, and you want to stop your opposition from exploring as much of the map as you can!
Never Forget! You’re an MVP!
In addition to the Stats that you’re already used to seeing in your Summoner Profile, you’ll now also have a running tally of how many times you’ve been an MVP in Alliance Wars! This is a brand new stat, and all players will start at 0 upon launch of 15.0.
New Boosts in the Loyalty Store
In addition to all of the changes we’re making to Alliance Wars, we’re also introducing some new Alliance Wars Boosts in the Loyalty Store! These 3 Boosts are only active for 3 Minutes, and are only able to be used in Alliance Wars. They are also not a permanent addition to the Loyalty store, and will only be available at random.
Advanced Power Boost: This boost will allow you to start a fight with 1 Bar of Power already stored.
Combat Regeneration Boost: This boost allows your Champion to start a fight a Regeneration Buff that will grant you 15% of your Maximum health over 20 Seconds. This regeneration cannot be nullified, but is still affected by Heal Block Nodes and Abilities. This is a Passive Regeneration and is not affected by Masteries or Abilities that would extend the length or Potency of the Regeneration (Ie. Recovery, or Dr. Voodoo’s Signature Ability)
Invulnerability Boost: This boost will allow your Champion to take no damage from the first 3 hits they receive in a fight. Remember, Special 3 attacks only count as 1 hit!
Additionally, we’re bumping up the potency of boosts that you’re already used to seeing in the Loyalty Store, like Class Specific Special and Power Boosts.
It’s been over a year now since we first introduced Alliance Wars, and since then, much has changed in the Contest. From countless new Champions, to new Buffs, and a whole new way to traverse the map, the Contest has come a long way.
Now, it’s time for Alliance Wars to start to catch up to all of the progress and new content that has come along over the last year.
It’s time for a Shakeup!
A Brand New Map
This is definitely the biggest change coming to Alliance Wars! The new map takes advantage of many new developments that have been made in the Contest lately, and offers Summoners more freedom than they are used to in Alliance Wars. Here’s a quick rundown:
Portals have been added to the Alliance Wars Map!
One of our goals with the new Map was to give Summoners greater control over their movement in Alliance Wars, and portals help do just that! Portals will allow Summoners to move around the map more freely, allowing you to help out Alliance Mates that are in trouble, or to move away from a section that you weren’t totally prepared for.
A Bigger Map, Less Linked Nodes, and shorter Energy Refresh Times!
The new map is roughly 1.5x larger than the previous map, but now features 60 minute energy timers, just like Alliance Quests! We’ve also reduced the amount of Linked Nodes that you’ll be encountering. Our goal with this change was to increase the amount of fights you’ll be able to participate in before waiting for an Alliance Mate to unblock your path.
Points for exploration have been reduced from 450 per node to 300 per node, so as to be roughly equal to before.
Changing the Status Quo
Up until now, you’ve probably gotten pretty used to finding the more manageable fights towards the center of the map, with the more difficult fights occurring towards the outer edges of the Map, but not anymore! Now, you’ll find that the further from the center of the map you are, the easier the Buffs and Nodes become. Additionally, the closer you get to the boss, the more difficult the skirmishes will become!
You’ll also find that instead of clearing the center lanes first, to open up the outer lanes, you’ll now want to clear the outer nodes before attempting to fight the tougher fights in the center.
More Minibosses!
We’re upping the amount of Minibosses! Get ready to face off against 5 Minibosses before you want to start your fight against the Boss!
New Buffs!
Another goal we had with this new map was to play up Champion Archetypes, so be ready for more nodes like Enhanced Poison, and Enhanced Energy Damage! This should also help to increase the diversity of Champions that you encounter on the Map.
We’ve also simplified some buffs and added them together. Instead of one node featuring a 50% Champion Boost, as well as a %100 Champion boost, these will be combined into a singular %150 Champion Boost.
Goodbye to some old Nodes!
This is one that we know many of you have been waiting to hear… We’ve removed all instances of Thorns and Slashed Tires across every difficulty level!
More Information to Help Make Decisions!
To give Summoners the ability to make better informed decisions on what paths they’ll be taking, and who they’ll be matched up against, we’re cutting down on what information is hidden about potential opponents. Now, even on the most difficult levels of Alliance Wars, you will always at least be able to see the Class of the opponents you’ll be facing.
Skirmish Rewards!
Introducing, Skirmish Rewards! After completing an Alliance War, you’ll receive an in game mail message that includes the stats for all of your Alliance Mates with their performance in that War, and a small chunk of gold for each kill earned by an attacker, or defender!
Changes to Scoring Methods
As we said above, one of our major goals with this iteration of Alliance Wars was to promote a wider cast of Defenders that you’ll encounter, instead of the same Champions over and over again. In addition to promoting this with the new nodes that will boost certain attributes like Energy Damage or Bleed, we’re introducing a brand new way to earn points in Alliance Wars.
Introducing, Defender Diversity points! Defender Diversity points are awarded to Alliances for bringing in unique Champions as Defenders. You will be awarded a small amount of points for each unique Champion your Alliance places as a Defender across all of your Battlegroups. Remember, this isn’t just for every Battlegroup… All of your Battlegroups are counted! Remember, a 4-Star Hulk and a 5-Star Hulk both count as The Hulk, and are not unique!
This scoring system will not award large amounts of points, and will act more as a tiebreaker than a game changer.
That’s not all though, we’re also making a major change to a scoring method that you’re all used to. We’re now removing points for received for Defender Kills, and increasing the points received for Attacker Kills! The goal of this change was to encourage Summoners to continue their assault on the opposing Alliance, without having to worry about giving them more points, and to avoid that feeling of defeat after only trying one fight and being beaten.
You’ll still want to make sure you’re bringing in your best Defenders though, as now, wins and losses can hinge on Exploration, and you want to stop your opposition from exploring as much of the map as you can!
Never Forget! You’re an MVP!
In addition to the Stats that you’re already used to seeing in your Summoner Profile, you’ll now also have a running tally of how many times you’ve been an MVP in Alliance Wars! This is a brand new stat, and all players will start at 0 upon launch of 15.0.
New Boosts in the Loyalty Store
In addition to all of the changes we’re making to Alliance Wars, we’re also introducing some new Alliance Wars Boosts in the Loyalty Store! These 3 Boosts are only active for 3 Minutes, and are only able to be used in Alliance Wars. They are also not a permanent addition to the Loyalty store, and will only be available at random.
Advanced Power Boost: This boost will allow you to start a fight with 1 Bar of Power already stored.
Combat Regeneration Boost: This boost allows your Champion to start a fight a Regeneration Buff that will grant you 15% of your Maximum health over 20 Seconds. This regeneration cannot be nullified, but is still affected by Heal Block Nodes and Abilities. This is a Passive Regeneration and is not affected by Masteries or Abilities that would extend the length or Potency of the Regeneration (Ie. Recovery, or Dr. Voodoo’s Signature Ability)
Invulnerability Boost: This boost will allow your Champion to take no damage from the first 3 hits they receive in a fight. Remember, Special 3 attacks only count as 1 hit!
Additionally, we’re bumping up the potency of boosts that you’re already used to seeing in the Loyalty Store, like Class Specific Special and Power Boosts.
Post edited by Kabam Miike on
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Let’s do a quick recap! Our goals with the new Alliance Wars iteration were to increase the diversity of Defenders, to give players greater control over their movement in Alliance Wars, and to give players more active play time. Here’s how we did it:
- New Map that is roughly 1.5x the size of the old map, that features 60 minute timers, and portals to help you traverse the map with greater control.
- Rearranged the difficulty of fights to have the more difficulty fights towards the center, and growing more difficult as you move closer to the Boss
- 5 Minibosses will be protecting the Boss!
- New Buffs that play up Character Archetypes
- Less Linked Nodes means more Fights before waiting for an Alliance Mate to unblock your path.
- Goodbye Thorns and Slashed Tires!
- Skirmish Rewards give you gold for each Attacker and Defender kill earned in Alliance Wars
- Keep track of how many times you’ve been an MVP in your Summoner Profile.
- Defender Diversity awards points for placing unique Defenders
- No more Defender Kill points
- New Loyalty Store Boosts only for use in Alliance Wars!
There are currently no adjustments being made to the rewards in Alliance Wars, but a revamp is on our radar as we move closer to the release of new content and 6-Stars in the future.
But hold on… There’s still more that you need to know to get prepared for the next iteration of Alliance Wars. As Alliance Wars Matchmaking comes to a close on August 30th, it will stay down for an extended period of time. Matchmaking will resume on September 6th, after the launch of 15.0.
During this time, we’re going to be making some adjustments to other content in the game.
For the Alliance Quests series running from Sunday, August 29th until Sunday, September 3rd, there will be Zero cost to run any of the Maps, and Alliance Quest energy will refresh every 30 minutes.
Additionally, all quests in Act 4 will have their energy costs temporarily reduced from 3 Energy per step to 2 Energy per step from August 30th at 10am PDT, until September 6th at 10am PDT.
This is a lot of take in all at once, and we encourage you to ask questions about the new Map, Boosts and Scoring Method! Sound off in the discussion thread!
EDIT: Corrected Dates on Alliance Quest for next series. This post previously stated that the next series of Alliance Quests would run from August 27th - August 31st. It also incorrectly stated that the Act 4 Energy reduction would start on August 28th, instead of the 30th.
Points Breakdown:
Node Exploration: 300 per Node (equals out to before, when it was 450)
Boss Kill: 20 000 Points
Defenders Placed: 50 per Defender Placed
Defender Diversity: 125 per Unique Defender
Defender Rating: 0.002 per PI
Attacker Kills: 150 per Kill
Now that we have made it through our first round of Alliance Wars, and you all helped to bring to light a problem with the scoring system that allowed an Alliance to in some cases have a large advantage by not placing defenders. We’ve made a change to the scoring system that will take care of this issue.
By not placing any defenders/only as many unique defenders possible, Alliances lost out on quite a few points, but also denied the opposing Alliance a lot more points from Attacker Kills. If the Alliance that placed no Defenders was then able to fully explore the Map, and clear the final boss, this would result in a win for them, and a pretty unfair loss for their opponents. To rectify this situation, starting tomorrow, with the relaunch of Matchmaking, we will be reverting the points for Attacker Kills from 150 Points per kill, to 50. This will bring the point values back in line, and put an end to the situation where an Alliance was able to prevent the opposing Alliance from getting the points needed for a win by not placing a true defensive roster.
This will no longer give the advantage to Alliances that simply choose to not place Alliance War Defenders, which wholly goes against the spirit of Alliance Wars.
Many of you may have also noticed that Defender Diversity is not taking the entire Alliance’s placed Defenders into account, and is only counting each Battlegroup. This is not intentional, and will be fixed as soon as we can.
Thank you all for all of your feedback, and for your patience as we worked to rectify this issue.
Thank you for waiting patiently as we worked behind the scenes to continue to improve the new Alliance Wars. We’re still making some adjustments, and want to re-emphasize that this will be an iterative process - one that we are dedicated to. We have greatly appreciated all of the constructive feedback Summoners have provided us with, as well as those that have urged their fellow players to grant us some time to look into both your comments and the way that Alliance Wars is currently running.
At this time, we can say that we have made a decision to keep Defender Diversity dependant on individual Battlegroups, and not based on the entire Alliance, as originally intended. This is something that many of you have requested, and something that we agree is better for players. This way, we’re shifting away from having to focus on your entire Alliance’s rosters, and to only those you are playing with directly.
We are still working on some things behind the scenes to ensure that we hit our goals that we wanted to achieve with this new iteration of Alliance wars, including the fact that Defender Diversity is meant to be a tie breaker, and not deciding the war. We will continue to make more iterations and adjustments until we have fulfilled our goals of making Alliance Wars more fun and engaging, as well as making the mode more varied, and to address concerns you all brought up.
Stay tuned! We will have more information to share with you next week!
Thank you all for continuing to offer us constructive and helpful feedback as we continue to work to improve the new iteration of Alliance Wars. As we work towards achieving the goals that we had set when we embarked on our venture to give you a new exciting Alliance Wars experience, we have made a couple of adjustments.
With Alliance Wars matchmaking commencing again on Wednesday, we are pleased to announce that we have made more decisions that will bring us closer to the goals that we have set for ourselves.
Revamped Nodes on Expert, Challenger, and Hard Difficulty War Maps.
Defender Diversity will continue to operate on a per Battlegroup basis.
The points awarded for Defender Diversity have been reduced from 125 per Unique Defender, to 50 points per Unique Defender.
Why are these changes important, and how will they help bring us closer to our goals of making Alliance Wars more fun, engaging, and diverse, and also address concerns that you have all raised in the past?
From the beginning, we have said that Defender Diversity is meant to be a tie breaking score, but because of the level of difficulty that our Map was providing Alliances, this was not the case. Both Alliances were often able to fully explore the opponent’s map. This is not what we intended. Additionally, both Alliances achieving 100% exploration should be a fairly rare occurrence.
By increasing the difficulty of the Map closer to the level of where it was before, we are placing more emphasis on the Defenders, and the choices you make when deciding which Defender should be placed on which node. While it may be enjoyable as an Attacker to be able to defeat any Defender that you encounter along your way, we wanted to make sure that the effort that is put into Ranking Up your Defenders, and carefully choosing their placement is still important. This improved map will help reach one of our biggest goals of making Alliance Wars more fun and engaging, while taking emphasis away from Defender Diversity.
We are continuing to keep an eye on Alliance Wars, and at how these adjustments get us closer to where we want Alliance Wars to be. We’ll be sure to keep you all informed on whether there are further adjustments needed.
You can take a look at the updated Nodes in the chart below.
We wanted to inform you all that this Series of Alliance Wars does not feature the updated Nodes that you see above. They will not be active until next week's series starts.
The change in points for Defender Diversity have been implemented, so that is functional for all wars that occur this week.
We wanted to remind you all that the Alliance Wars maps for Expert, Challenger, and Intermediate will be updated for the next session of Alliance Wars when Matchmaking returns on October 4th!
As we’ve collected data, and gathered your feedback, we have been making adjustments as we’ve gone along, each time getting closer to our goals that we’ve made for Alliance Wars, which are to make the mode more varied, fun and engaging.
These node adjustments will bring the difficulty of the Maps closer to where they were in the last iteration of Alliance Wars, and place more emphasis on the choices you make with Defenders and the nodes you choose to place them on.
We’ll be continuing to monitor how these changes affect Alliance Wars, and will continue to make adjustments as necessary until we make Alliance Wars into the mode we know it can be! Once you’ve had a chance to run the map a few times, pop back here to share your thoughts and provide us with your feedback on it!
Tomorrow, we’ll be debuting our next refinement on the Hard, Challenger, and Expert Maps in Alliance Wars.
As we work towards our previously stated goals of making Alliance Wars more engaging, challenging, and varied, we’ve gathered your feedback and collected lots of data. We’ve made a few adjustments as we’ve gone along, and have been getting closer and closer to where we want Alliance Wars to be.
After introducing some changes to some of the nodes of these 3 maps recently, we’ve gotten closer to where we were in terms of difficulty in the previous iteration of Alliance Wars, and moving the emphasis back towards making informed decisions on the combinations of Defender and Nodes. We still feel there are additional changes and improvements we can make, and we are paying close attention to the performance and opinion of the mode.
This iteration of node adjustments will focus on some of the more high value locations on the map, and will introduce some newer buffs that you may have seen in Act 5.
We’ll be monitoring these changes and the effect they have on Alliance Wars moving forward, and will continue to make adjustments as necessary. Once you’ve had some experience with the Map, and have ran through it a couple times, come back here to share your thoughts!
The time has come for us to share with you the next iteration of difficulty adjustments on the Hard, Challenger, and Expert Maps of Alliance Wars!
As we’ve been working towards our previously stated goals of making Alliance Wars a more diverse and engaging mode, we’ve done a few iterations of difficulty adjustments on these three maps, and each time have gotten closer to making the Defender Rating and Diversity the tie breaking mechanisms that we had always wanted them to be.
We feel that we are now very close to the intended level of difficulty for these maps, and have moved a lot of emphasis back to effective Defender choice and Placement. We are now ready to make smaller refinements to nodes and overall difficulty to get the difficulty level exactly where we want it to be.
These changes will come into effect when matchmaking resumes on November 8th.
While these refinements will bring us even closer to where we want the mode to be, we aren’t done yet. We realize that there are still some aspects of Alliance Wars that you all feel are missing, and are continuing to work on further iterations of Alliance Wars that will address those concerns. We will also continue to monitor these difficulty adjustments, and will continue to iterate as necessary.