The end all summary of this will be that you are making Defender rating and Diversity the two tie breakers. Doesn’t matter how you allocate the points. If both teams explore 100%, no skill required. The one with the higher Defender rating (now you lowered diversity points) will win. How can you have two variables to determine winners? That’s a sloppy formula.
The point of the map changes is that we want you guys to emphasize your Defenders again. Prevent the other team from getting 100% exploration.
...and those upgraded nodes do not do that. We'll still easily 100% the map.
Removing Defender Kill Points has removed skill from Alliance War. Resulting in a boring, uncompetitive alliance quest 2.0.
I can see where you're coming from.
If the idea is that you think you'll still be able to 100% clear this map as it is now, how would defender kills have made a difference?
I can take that information to the team and see what they think.
Defender kills points adds more points to the more effective team. As it is right now even upgraded both teams still clear and defender rating only variable meaning higher rated alliance wins. Period. Every time. Period. 100 percent. Period. Not 50. Not 70. Not 90 not 99>> 100. Thanks for playing.
I am compelled to point out that this sort of hyperbole doesn't help anyone's cause. If your argument is that literally 100% of all wars are decided by the higher rated alliance, a single counterexample disproves the argument and renders it worthless.
And what single point would that be. Nothing? Because it’s correct? Please don’t post meaningless drivel. There is no variation that can gave someone with a lower rating win vs a person with a higher rating and max diversity etc. so your lack of a point about hyperbole wasted all our time.
Don't be a twat. I've been in 2 wars where some players on the opposing side didn't show up, so they didn't even make it to the boss and they lost the wars. So since your point is, "defender rating is the only variable 100% of the time", those 2 examples render your point invalid. If there are 2 exceptions, then obviously it cannot be 100% of the time.
DNA3000 is giving good advice. You don't have to take it, but responding impolitely to one of the most lucid, sensible and patient posters in this thread because you don't have the patience or capacity to understand his point does not make you look good.
Don’t be an idiot that doesn’t qualify for maxing out everything including diversity does it. Once again. If the higher rating MAXES OUT EVERYTHING. There is no chance of winning that would be zero percent. Not showing up doesn’t really qualify for the discussion. Post more meaningless **** like what if only one person placed. Obviously diversity and rating would suffer though attacker kills and defenders placed on alternate sides would still equate to the same amount of points.
Your response as does his adds nothing to the discussion simply points out alternatives that have nothing to do with the point being made.
You should try to get your point across better then.
Defender kills make a difference because that is the only thing that makes sense as a tie breaker in alliance war. The defining metric when placing a defense should be how effective it is and not how diverse it is. I can't predict the future but I think it's safe to assume people will still 100% maps whether by skill or spamming items.
I've suggested it in this chat before but making defender kills the same amount of points as diversity seems like a great alternative. It gives the players a choice of whether they'd take the guaranteed 50 points from diversity or risk it if they think they'll get more than kill.
The problem isn't necessarily that Kabam has introduced points for diversity to encourage players to place a more interestingly variable defense. The problem is that it is an all or nothing change. For a given war situation, a given tier say, there's a certain (generally very high) probability of any defender being defeated. That means either the defender is going to be defeated and replacing that defender with a unique diverse defender will always score more points, or the defender is not going to be defeated and it is worth placing more than one of. In some tiers for some alliances the calculation is such that the second situation basically never happens at all, or too rarely to matter, and no defender is worth duplicating. There's no tradeoff possible for strong vs weak. It is all or nothing.
But even in tiers where defenders are more likely to be defeated than zero, experience tells me that champions do not run the gamut from very difficult to kill to easy to kill. There is a tier of nasty defenders (for a given tier), and then everyone else. There isn't enough gray area to create any interesting decisions, and once again it is all or nothing. Either the defender is good enough that it is worth placing many, or the defender is not good enough and it is never worth placing more than one.
This all or nothing property is what makes defender diversity such a nasty change, and why changing the points surrounding it don't create interesting situations. There needs to be situations where one is great to place, two is worth the point cost, but three is not worth it, for example. And that requires that the penalty for placing duplicates is different for placing two vs placing three vs placing four. That gives players options. That needs to be combined with a way to judge how hard a defender is to kill, and defender kill points were one way to do that, but there are other ways. I mentioned a couple: reduce the attacker points for each attacker that attacks the node, modify the attacker points based on the total amount of time it takes to defeat the node across all attackers, give the defense points for every revive the attacking side uses to revive attackers. All of those options judge the performance of the attacking side not just in terms of overall map exploration but also in terms of how they perform against each individual defending node.
To make war competitive in an interesting way, we need to be able to say who were the good attackers and who placed the best defenders. We can give points for unusual or surprising defense maps, but we have to make sure that the ability for the node to stop attackers is also part of the equation. Kabam can claim that defensive kills were discouraging players from attacking, but there are many ways to judge defensive nodes that do not discourage players from using live attackers. Defensive points for revives is one such way, and there's no good reason not to explore these options to give players back what they want while still doing exactly what they said they set out to do.
The fact that Kabam can get everything they claimed to want while still giving the players pretty much everything they are asking for, at least the ones interested in competition, is a bit frustrating. We don't have to randomly change point scores over and over again until players just get tired of complaining about the variations, and we don't have to randomly guess what will solve the problem. There have been many good ideas discussed in this thread that would solve all of Kabam's stated problems while addressing most of the biggest gripes. We don't have to choose between what we want and what Kabam says they want.
Just to address your suggestion directly, Kabam stated that defender kills were removed because they were discouraging players from attacking nodes they believed they were not likely to kill. So defender kills that are worth any meaningful value would be something Kabam could claim did not address that problem. But as I said, there are ways to reward defender kills without rewarding defender kills in a way that discourages attacking. We can get what we want without Kabam being able to claim it runs contrary to what they are trying to do. We don't actually have to compromise here. We can even do better than what 14.0 was doing.
The end all summary of this will be that you are making Defender rating and Diversity the two tie breakers. Doesn’t matter how you allocate the points. If both teams explore 100%, no skill required. The one with the higher Defender rating (now you lowered diversity points) will win. How can you have two variables to determine winners? That’s a sloppy formula.
The point of the map changes is that we want you guys to emphasize your Defenders again. Prevent the other team from getting 100% exploration.
...and those upgraded nodes do not do that. We'll still easily 100% the map.
Removing Defender Kill Points has removed skill from Alliance War. Resulting in a boring, uncompetitive alliance quest 2.0.
I can see where you're coming from.
If the idea is that you think you'll still be able to 100% clear this map as it is now, how would defender kills have made a difference?
I can take that information to the team and see what they think.
Defender kills points adds more points to the more effective team. As it is right now even upgraded both teams still clear and defender rating only variable meaning higher rated alliance wins. Period. Every time. Period. 100 percent. Period. Not 50. Not 70. Not 90 not 99>> 100. Thanks for playing.
I am compelled to point out that this sort of hyperbole doesn't help anyone's cause. If your argument is that literally 100% of all wars are decided by the higher rated alliance, a single counterexample disproves the argument and renders it worthless.
And what single point would that be. Nothing? Because it’s correct? Please don’t post meaningless drivel. There is no variation that can gave someone with a lower rating win vs a person with a higher rating and max diversity etc. so your lack of a point about hyperbole wasted all our time.
Don't be a twat. I've been in 2 wars where some players on the opposing side didn't show up, so they didn't even make it to the boss and they lost the wars. So since your point is, "defender rating is the only variable 100% of the time", those 2 examples render your point invalid. If there are 2 exceptions, then obviously it cannot be 100% of the time.
DNA3000 is giving good advice. You don't have to take it, but responding impolitely to one of the most lucid, sensible and patient posters in this thread because you don't have the patience or capacity to understand his point does not make you look good.
Don’t be an idiot that doesn’t qualify for maxing out everything including diversity does it. Once again. If the higher rating MAXES OUT EVERYTHING. There is no chance of winning that would be zero percent. Not showing up doesn’t really qualify for the discussion. Post more meaningless **** like what if only one person placed. Obviously diversity and rating would suffer though attacker kills and defenders placed on alternate sides would still equate to the same amount of points.
Your response as does his adds nothing to the discussion simply points out alternatives that have nothing to do with the point being made.
You should try to get your point across better then.
To be fair, not everyone speaks English as a first language so maybe he's unable to make sense even though he thinks he is.
it continues to get more and more clear that removing defender kills and lowering the difficulty is kabam's way of tempting the masses into using more items because they're so close to 100% completion.
How about they tapp out on this failure of a new map and roll back to the old map...seeing ally’s crumbling left right and center...members losing interest.
I got a warning today, and I replied with some horrible language. Out of that came a great dialogue with @Kabam Miike. He's aware of how bad the aw situation is, and sounded like they really want a fix for aw. I'm going to wait and see what they do. Mike didn't have to respond to me individually but he did. Imo if they keep diversity we should get rdt. Or they should make it where our awd 5/50s are useful again. Call me gullible, but I think they're going to fix it. For now I'm backing off, and going to let them work out an aw fix.
A few of the prominent YouTubers at New York City Comicon expressed to the devs many of the issues we have with the current state of Alliance War, especially the lack of competitiveness/skill and strategy based play (including Defender Kill Points).
Gives me a little hope that we'll see AW brought back to a fun/competitive state.
For the new updated for wars both my and the opposing alliance 100% which means the victor will come down to defender rating. Imo defenderkills need to be reintroduced as a secondary tie breaker for skill
When is the increase in rewards going to happen?
I dont imagine we are gonna be getting a decent AW to enjoy any time real soon, so can we at least get some better rewards for the suffering we have to deal with in the mean time?
I got a warning today, and I replied with some horrible language. Out of that came a great dialogue with @Kabam Miike. He's aware of how bad the aw situation is, and sounded like they really want a fix for aw. I'm going to wait and see what they do. Mike didn't have to respond to me individually but he did. Imo if they keep diversity we should get rdt. Or they should make it where our awd 5/50s are useful again. Call me gullible, but I think they're going to fix it. For now I'm backing off, and going to let them work out an aw fix.
it comes down to one question: which setup makes kabam more money. that’s it. i don’t blame kabam- its a business. but how players feel about the change means zero, except to the degree that it reduces participation and profit.
This is exactly what I talked about with Sctty2hotty33_, we don't need "pressure" to make changes. We already agree that there is work that needs to be done with Alliance Wars, especially from where it started with this iteration. We're getting closer to where we want to be with Alliance Wars, and we'll know more after this series of wars finish.
We are committed to making sure we make this mode the best that it can be! We're not giving up, and we want to work with you guys to make it happen. We understand that it's frustrating that it's taking a while, but this might take a few more iterations. Hopefully not many, but we're going to have to wait and see where we're at soon!
I got a warning today, and I replied with some horrible language. Out of that came a great dialogue with @Kabam Miike. He's aware of how bad the aw situation is, and sounded like they really want a fix for aw. I'm going to wait and see what they do. Mike didn't have to respond to me individually but he did. Imo if they keep diversity we should get rdt. Or they should make it where our awd 5/50s are useful again. Call me gullible, but I think they're going to fix it. For now I'm backing off, and going to let them work out an aw fix.
it comes down to one question: which setup makes kabam more money. that’s it. i don’t blame kabam- its a business. but how players feel about the change means zero, except to the degree that it reduces participation and profit.
This is exactly what I talked about with Sctty2hotty33_, we don't need "pressure" to make changes. We already agree that there is work that needs to be done with Alliance Wars, especially from where it started with this iteration. We're getting closer to where we want to be with Alliance Wars, and we'll know more after this series of wars finish.
We are committed to making sure we make this mode the best that it can be! We're not giving up, and we want to work with you guys to make it happen. We understand that it's frustrating that it's taking a while, but this might take a few more iterations. Hopefully not many, but we're going to have to wait and see where we're at soon!
Hey Miike, can you state what it is you want to achieve ? I get that you want to make a profit on AW, and made some changes that you thought would help in that department, and also with the removal of certain nodes it has made the map easier to run and I haven't seen anyone just running boss express paths now. It really is a decent map, I like the portal idea but hate the fact that one guy can tap A instead of B and it messes us up.
The miniboss nodes are nice too, but it would be more of a challenge not knowing who is where. What is the vision that you guys have for AW ? The nodes that would buff bleed or poison champs are easily countered, just bring an immune, we all know what each node on each path does as far as buffs. It would be really nice if we could assign buff placement ourselves though.
I got a warning today, and I replied with some horrible language. Out of that came a great dialogue with @Kabam Miike. He's aware of how bad the aw situation is, and sounded like they really want a fix for aw. I'm going to wait and see what they do. Mike didn't have to respond to me individually but he did. Imo if they keep diversity we should get rdt. Or they should make it where our awd 5/50s are useful again. Call me gullible, but I think they're going to fix it. For now I'm backing off, and going to let them work out an aw fix.
it comes down to one question: which setup makes kabam more money. that’s it. i don’t blame kabam- its a business. but how players feel about the change means zero, except to the degree that it reduces participation and profit.
This is exactly what I talked about with Sctty2hotty33_, we don't need "pressure" to make changes. We already agree that there is work that needs to be done with Alliance Wars, especially from where it started with this iteration. We're getting closer to where we want to be with Alliance Wars, and we'll know more after this series of wars finish.
We are committed to making sure we make this mode the best that it can be! We're not giving up, and we want to work with you guys to make it happen. We understand that it's frustrating that it's taking a while, but this might take a few more iterations. Hopefully not many, but we're going to have to wait and see where we're at soon!
If your listening to us then miike why are you not scrapping defender diversity, bringing back defender kills an making dexterity passive. Until these 3 things are done you are blatantly ignoring what the community is asking for. Why won't you answer us on why you won't make dexterity passive ?
AW Wars are meaningless now. There is no way to win. Now I love the game a lot I play it all the time. I even have an alliance. But With all the bugs and issues in the game right now it's unplayable. Now I don't want to be rude but I would rather Kabam just go back to the last update and start over. the inhuman update. If they go back there and work on the bugs for the new update and then release it I'm sure the game would be playable again. but I don't need Kabam Mike here to tell me that it's not possible. The Bugs and issues with the new war is overwhelming when it comes to a playable game. Kabam doesn't really care about us right now. I'm not talking about the support team (Cuz they look over everything and they know what's going on) But I mean the big dogs. all they care about is the money.
That's all I really have to say about this topic. Not trying t be rude just stating the facts.
We had a guy leave after AQ, leaving us at 29 so this war was lost before it even started. How garbage of a game mode can there be if the outcome is determined before the game is played?
I got a warning today, and I replied with some horrible language. Out of that came a great dialogue with @Kabam Miike. He's aware of how bad the aw situation is, and sounded like they really want a fix for aw. I'm going to wait and see what they do. Mike didn't have to respond to me individually but he did. Imo if they keep diversity we should get rdt. Or they should make it where our awd 5/50s are useful again. Call me gullible, but I think they're going to fix it. For now I'm backing off, and going to let them work out an aw fix.
it comes down to one question: which setup makes kabam more money. that’s it. i don’t blame kabam- its a business. but how players feel about the change means zero, except to the degree that it reduces participation and profit.
This is exactly what I talked about with Sctty2hotty33_, we don't need "pressure" to make changes. We already agree that there is work that needs to be done with Alliance Wars, especially from where it started with this iteration. We're getting closer to where we want to be with Alliance Wars, and we'll know more after this series of wars finish.
We are committed to making sure we make this mode the best that it can be! We're not giving up, and we want to work with you guys to make it happen. We understand that it's frustrating that it's taking a while, but this might take a few more iterations. Hopefully not many, but we're going to have to wait and see where we're at soon!
If your listening to us then miike why are you not scrapping defender diversity, bringing back defender kills an making dexterity passive. Until these 3 things are done you are blatantly ignoring what the community is asking for. Why won't you answer us on why you won't make dexterity passive ?
they need to keep diversity. it's awesome not having to fight the 5 magiks in a row.
but yes they need to bring back defender kills and the whole dexterity thing.
I got a warning today, and I replied with some horrible language. Out of that came a great dialogue with @Kabam Miike. He's aware of how bad the aw situation is, and sounded like they really want a fix for aw. I'm going to wait and see what they do. Mike didn't have to respond to me individually but he did. Imo if they keep diversity we should get rdt. Or they should make it where our awd 5/50s are useful again. Call me gullible, but I think they're going to fix it. For now I'm backing off, and going to let them work out an aw fix.
it comes down to one question: which setup makes kabam more money. that’s it. i don’t blame kabam- its a business. but how players feel about the change means zero, except to the degree that it reduces participation and profit.
This is exactly what I talked about with Sctty2hotty33_, we don't need "pressure" to make changes. We already agree that there is work that needs to be done with Alliance Wars, especially from where it started with this iteration. We're getting closer to where we want to be with Alliance Wars, and we'll know more after this series of wars finish.
We are committed to making sure we make this mode the best that it can be! We're not giving up, and we want to work with you guys to make it happen. We understand that it's frustrating that it's taking a while, but this might take a few more iterations. Hopefully not many, but we're going to have to wait and see where we're at soon!
If your listening to us then miike why are you not scrapping defender diversity, bringing back defender kills an making dexterity passive. Until these 3 things are done you are blatantly ignoring what the community is asking for. Why won't you answer us on why you won't make dexterity passive ?
they need to keep diversity. it's awesome not having to fight the 5 magiks in a row.
but yes they need to bring back defender kills and the whole dexterity thing.
If they made dexterity passive magik would not be a problem at all. Diversity is trash, we've spent money time an resources on certain defenders an now only 1 person in each by can bring that champ, I feel cheated of all my money time an hard work.
It seems as if Kabam is going to try every iteration that doesn't include the return of Defender Kills that they can think of, first. If Wars still don't "work" then, and ONLY then, will they consider bringing that functionality back. Defender Kills reduces spending. They would MUCH rather have us using all 15 items every war, and get us spending, than bring back a system that makes people resist whipping out their credit card...
There's no point of making the nodes harder. It will make 0 difference because people will spend and spend and spend until each bg is 100%. There is no factor limiting people from exploring 100%. No matter how hard you make the content, people will spend until they 100% it. The only way to counter that is by penalizing people for reviving, like with defender kills. War will never reach the standard we all want until Kabam brings back defender kills. It's as simple as that.
I get diversity - War was becoming stale fighting the same champs over and over again. I do like the idea of being "rewarded" with points for teams to make wars more unpredictable/fun.
I get the map design - Adding a portal so people can help on one path instead of another is a good idea.
I don't get what the point of removing defender kills was. No one wanted that.
I know the reasons that were posted by Kabam, but the ideas behind them were weak. Dying in war should matter and having a champ that gets kills in war should always be more valuable than getting diversity points.
Please bring back defender kill points. every war has been decided once war starts since the updates.
It isn't fun to win or lose like that.
I was really hoping to get an answer as to when you guys will fix war and just bring back defender kills like we have been asking for. You talk about making a fun and engaging experience, but at the top tiers, war is more like going through an average quest than an actual competition. Deciding every war on Defender rating is absolute bogus. It's not a test of skill or strategy, but rather, a scale of who has the most money to shell out on resources for the level ups. It's a Pay to win system. If that's how you guys want to run your game, that is fine, but don't sit here and pretend to be promoting this "competitive" game mode when its nothing more than who has the most money in their pocket. Quit lying to your consumer base. My alliance was doing incredibly well in wars, even though we have a lower rating, because we have a lot of skill. You are penalizing the players who are actually trying to play your game skillfully and rewarding people who have money to spend. Thats not a good system whatsoever. With every war, I just see more and more that you have actually been full of it about this whole Beta testing community. It's a lie. There is no other explanation. If you did, all of the things your actual player base has found wrong with your BS war system would have been scrapped. So at this point i'm left with, either you guys knew this is how it would turn out and just figured it would make you more money so screw your player base, or you guys need some new "beta testers".
I get diversity - War was becoming stale fighting the same champs over and over again. I do like the idea of being "rewarded" with points for teams to make wars more unpredictable/fun.
I get the map design - Adding a portal so people can help on one path instead of another is a good idea.
I don't get what the point of removing defender kills was. No one wanted that.
I know the reasons that were posted by Kabam, but the ideas behind them were weak. Dying in war should matter and having a champ that gets kills in war should always be more valuable than getting diversity points.
Please bring back defender kill points. every war has been decided once war starts since the updates.
It isn't fun to win or lose like that.
Ironically, diversity points work better with defender kills. With both points for unique defenders and points for strong defenders, players would at least have something to think about when deciding what the place. It was specifically the removal of defender kills that made diversity points especially unpalatable.
I think people would have accepted diversity points more if defender kills were not removed. And I still think there's a way to implement diversity encouragement while still valuing strong defenders in a way that doesn't discourage attacking and doesn't overemphasize defender rating while still encouraging more diverse defender placement setups. You just can't get there with node tweaks not matter how many iterations you perform. You might think you do, because of some serious issues with datamining this kind of change.
Players want more diverse defender placements. They do not want diversity dictated. They do want to make strategic decisions when placing defenders. They want to emphasize competition and the defensive performance of the champions. Kabam wants more AW participation and wants to encourage players to press attacks even when it seems unlikely the attacker will necessarily win. We can do all of that without randomly hoping to find an unlikely compromise set of numbers, by using actual intelligent design.
1. Redesign the nodes so that every node, or at least many critical nodes, emphasize at least two different defensive aspects, not just one. We know unblockable special two encourages certain kinds of defenders while unstunnable encourages different defenders. When these nodes exist we expect certain champs on unblockable 2 and others on unstunnable. But if the nodes were combo nodes, we wouldn't be sure. To make sure the nodes did not get too hard, place class limits on them. Make a node where *if* you place a mutant there it becomes unblockable 2 but if you place a science it becomes unstunnable. Something like that, just for example. That way you don't have nodes that are unstunnable and unblockable and power generating or something crazy. It shouldn't be that blatant everywhere (and probably shouldn't get too difficult which would be too harsh at lower AW tiers), but by making the node dependent on what you place there, you can add unpredictability to the map placement. The possibilities are limitless: imagine a node where skill champions get power gain, but cosmic champions heal block. I'm sure there are players that can think of all kinds of nasty combinations explicitly designed to present interesting challenges to attacking players.
2. Replace defender kill points with attacker performance points. Emphasize that we are not giving points to players "just for placing a defender." Instead, make the points the attacker gets from attacking a function of how well they attack. There are many ways to do this, and I think two function the best. If you literally do not want to discourage attacking at all, apply an attacker penalty for every revive used. This means no player is discouraged from using an attacker that is still alive - they might as well try. But a strong defender that forces players to revive attackers to continue on is more valuable than one that does not. A better attacker performance function that doesn't completely eliminate all possible attacker discouragement is one where the attacker's points are a function of the total amount of time it takes to kill the node. Anything less than one minute equals full points. Anything higher than one minute and the attacker points become equal to the base point value (say, 50) divided by the total time to kill the node in minutes. So if it takes 90 seconds to kill the node, the attacker gets 50/1.5 = 33 points. If the attacker gets killed after two minutes and then kills the node with his second attacker after 30 seconds, the attacker gets 50/2.5 = 20 points.
3. Change the diversity system so that instead of having only two kinds of defenders - unique and non-unique - we apply a scaling defender placement penalty for repeat defenders. The first defender placed gets full points, say 100. The second copy of that defender gets only 75% of full points, in this case 75. The third copy gets only 50%, or 50. The fourth gets 33%, and the fifth gets 25%. The sixth and all higher copies gets only 10%. These numbers may need to be tweaked, but the idea is that the non-unique penalty doesn't hit all at once. Players are encouraged to place more diverse defenders but it is not all or nothing. One duplicate defender doesn't cost you a lot. But repeated duplicates increase the penalty.
This system appears to have almost all the properties people are asking for. It does not discourage attacking, which solves one of Kabam's stated issues. It encourages more diverse map placement, which is something both the players and Kabam want. It discourages repeated placement of the same highest performance defenders everywhere, which is something both Kabam and the players want. But it does not dictate one specific way to place defenders, which is a major complaint about 15.X. It encourages strategic thinking. It encourages competition. It emphasizes attacker performance. It doesn't overvalue defensive placement points over strong attacking. It is unlikely to generate ties.
Every element of this solution can and should be tweaked over time to adjust to playtesting and evolving player performance. But it starts off with a fundamental design structure that *directly* attacks the problems, rather than randomly hoping to stumble into a solution by chance.
I want to also point out that defender kills are still gone. Diversity is still encouraged. The solution contains the two properties players have explicitly complained about the most, but implements both in a way that I believe would be far more palatable, and could in fact end up being better than 14.0 AW. It is possible for everyone to get what they want, if we just use the tools of intelligent design that are available to us.
The fundamental issue with it is the removal of Defender Kills serves a purpose. It was important to remove the penalty for making an effort because the numbers mounted so high that it was a nail in the coffin. There shouldn't be a penalty for trying in Attack. There should be a penalty for the Match (Losing). Again, there shouldn't be a sacrifice for making an effort in Attack. No one should wait 24 hours to give up trying because a Win is not possible due to Kills. There has to be another way to encourage trying and taking a Loss through effort.
Which is why I mentioned previously that Defender Kills contradict Diversity. Diversity is such a low metric that Allies will inevitably focus on Defender Kills regardless and it will leave Diversity as pretty much insignificant. Reason being, Defender Kills can mount, and Diversity is a set amount. 30 Players, 15 Item Uses each, 3 Champs to start, which means a great deal of Points to accumulate for people trying. Defender Kills are the opposite of Diversity. Which is why I stated that if they introduced it again at all, it has to be at such a low metric it doesn't become the defining metric of Wars.
Diversity contradicts competition. If we ranked certain champs for war defense because they were effective at stopping the other alliance from beating us, then they shouldn't be penalized if I place them because of diversity.
The fundamental issue with it is the removal of Defender Kills serves a purpose. It was important to remove the penalty for making an effort because the numbers mounted so high that it was a nail in the coffin. There shouldn't be a penalty for trying in Attack. There should be a penalty for the Match (Losing). Again, there shouldn't be a sacrifice for making an effort in Attack. No one should wait 24 hours to give up trying because a Win is not possible due to Kills. There has to be another way to encourage trying and taking a Loss through effort.
Which is why I mentioned previously that Defender Kills contradict Diversity. Diversity is such a low metric that Allies will inevitably focus on Defender Kills regardless and it will leave Diversity as pretty much insignificant. Reason being, Defender Kills can mount, and Diversity is a set amount. 30 Players, 15 Item Uses each, 3 Champs to start, which means a great deal of Points to accumulate for people trying. Defender Kills are the opposite of Diversity. Which is why I stated that if they introduced it again at all, it has to be at such a low metric it doesn't become the defining metric of Wars.
Removing defender kills removed any obstacle to 100% the map. Whereas before, people are penalized rightly for playing bad and dying multiple times, now people can spend their way to a win if their defender rating is high. There is no longer any skill involved. Anyone with a bunch of units can go into war, and spend their way through it.
The fundamental issue with it is the removal of Defender Kills serves a purpose. It was important to remove the penalty for making an effort because the numbers mounted so high that it was a nail in the coffin. There shouldn't be a penalty for trying in Attack. There should be a penalty for the Match (Losing). Again, there shouldn't be a sacrifice for making an effort in Attack. No one should wait 24 hours to give up trying because a Win is not possible due to Kills. There has to be another way to encourage trying and taking a Loss through effort.
Which is why I mentioned previously that Defender Kills contradict Diversity. Diversity is such a low metric that Allies will inevitably focus on Defender Kills regardless and it will leave Diversity as pretty much insignificant. Reason being, Defender Kills can mount, and Diversity is a set amount. 30 Players, 15 Item Uses each, 3 Champs to start, which means a great deal of Points to accumulate for people trying. Defender Kills are the opposite of Diversity. Which is why I stated that if they introduced it again at all, it has to be at such a low metric it doesn't become the defining metric of Wars.
Removing defender kills removed any obstacle to 100% the map. Whereas before, people are penalized rightly for playing bad and dying multiple times, now people can spend their way to a win if their defender rating is high. There is no longer any skill involved. Anyone with a bunch of units can go into war, and spend their way through it.
Spending has always been an option. The Item Use hasn't changed. There's shouldn't be a penalty for spending either. If people have to spend, that's enough as it is.
The fundamental issue with it is the removal of Defender Kills serves a purpose. It was important to remove the penalty for making an effort because the numbers mounted so high that it was a nail in the coffin. There shouldn't be a penalty for trying in Attack. There should be a penalty for the Match (Losing). Again, there shouldn't be a sacrifice for making an effort in Attack. No one should wait 24 hours to give up trying because a Win is not possible due to Kills. There has to be another way to encourage trying and taking a Loss through effort.
Which is why I mentioned previously that Defender Kills contradict Diversity. Diversity is such a low metric that Allies will inevitably focus on Defender Kills regardless and it will leave Diversity as pretty much insignificant. Reason being, Defender Kills can mount, and Diversity is a set amount. 30 Players, 15 Item Uses each, 3 Champs to start, which means a great deal of Points to accumulate for people trying. Defender Kills are the opposite of Diversity. Which is why I stated that if they introduced it again at all, it has to be at such a low metric it doesn't become the defining metric of Wars.
Removing defender kills removed any obstacle to 100% the map. Whereas before, people are penalized rightly for playing bad and dying multiple times, now people can spend their way to a win if their defender rating is high. There is no longer any skill involved. Anyone with a bunch of units can go into war, and spend their way through it.
Spending has always been an option. The Item Use hasn't changed. There's shouldn't be a penalty for spending either. If people have to spend, that's enough as it is.
That's a straw man argument. I never said penalize for spending, I said penalize for dying. If a team dies 75 times to a single boss node, they are a worse team and should be penalized for that, versus a team who can solo a boss.
Comments
You should try to get your point across better then.
The problem isn't necessarily that Kabam has introduced points for diversity to encourage players to place a more interestingly variable defense. The problem is that it is an all or nothing change. For a given war situation, a given tier say, there's a certain (generally very high) probability of any defender being defeated. That means either the defender is going to be defeated and replacing that defender with a unique diverse defender will always score more points, or the defender is not going to be defeated and it is worth placing more than one of. In some tiers for some alliances the calculation is such that the second situation basically never happens at all, or too rarely to matter, and no defender is worth duplicating. There's no tradeoff possible for strong vs weak. It is all or nothing.
But even in tiers where defenders are more likely to be defeated than zero, experience tells me that champions do not run the gamut from very difficult to kill to easy to kill. There is a tier of nasty defenders (for a given tier), and then everyone else. There isn't enough gray area to create any interesting decisions, and once again it is all or nothing. Either the defender is good enough that it is worth placing many, or the defender is not good enough and it is never worth placing more than one.
This all or nothing property is what makes defender diversity such a nasty change, and why changing the points surrounding it don't create interesting situations. There needs to be situations where one is great to place, two is worth the point cost, but three is not worth it, for example. And that requires that the penalty for placing duplicates is different for placing two vs placing three vs placing four. That gives players options. That needs to be combined with a way to judge how hard a defender is to kill, and defender kill points were one way to do that, but there are other ways. I mentioned a couple: reduce the attacker points for each attacker that attacks the node, modify the attacker points based on the total amount of time it takes to defeat the node across all attackers, give the defense points for every revive the attacking side uses to revive attackers. All of those options judge the performance of the attacking side not just in terms of overall map exploration but also in terms of how they perform against each individual defending node.
To make war competitive in an interesting way, we need to be able to say who were the good attackers and who placed the best defenders. We can give points for unusual or surprising defense maps, but we have to make sure that the ability for the node to stop attackers is also part of the equation. Kabam can claim that defensive kills were discouraging players from attacking, but there are many ways to judge defensive nodes that do not discourage players from using live attackers. Defensive points for revives is one such way, and there's no good reason not to explore these options to give players back what they want while still doing exactly what they said they set out to do.
The fact that Kabam can get everything they claimed to want while still giving the players pretty much everything they are asking for, at least the ones interested in competition, is a bit frustrating. We don't have to randomly change point scores over and over again until players just get tired of complaining about the variations, and we don't have to randomly guess what will solve the problem. There have been many good ideas discussed in this thread that would solve all of Kabam's stated problems while addressing most of the biggest gripes. We don't have to choose between what we want and what Kabam says they want.
Just to address your suggestion directly, Kabam stated that defender kills were removed because they were discouraging players from attacking nodes they believed they were not likely to kill. So defender kills that are worth any meaningful value would be something Kabam could claim did not address that problem. But as I said, there are ways to reward defender kills without rewarding defender kills in a way that discourages attacking. We can get what we want without Kabam being able to claim it runs contrary to what they are trying to do. We don't actually have to compromise here. We can even do better than what 14.0 was doing.
To be fair, not everyone speaks English as a first language so maybe he's unable to make sense even though he thinks he is.
it continues to get more and more clear that removing defender kills and lowering the difficulty is kabam's way of tempting the masses into using more items because they're so close to 100% completion.
#BringBackDefenderKillPoints
Gives me a little hope that we'll see AW brought back to a fun/competitive state.
I dont imagine we are gonna be getting a decent AW to enjoy any time real soon, so can we at least get some better rewards for the suffering we have to deal with in the mean time?
This is exactly what I talked about with Sctty2hotty33_, we don't need "pressure" to make changes. We already agree that there is work that needs to be done with Alliance Wars, especially from where it started with this iteration. We're getting closer to where we want to be with Alliance Wars, and we'll know more after this series of wars finish.
We are committed to making sure we make this mode the best that it can be! We're not giving up, and we want to work with you guys to make it happen. We understand that it's frustrating that it's taking a while, but this might take a few more iterations. Hopefully not many, but we're going to have to wait and see where we're at soon!
Hey Miike, can you state what it is you want to achieve ? I get that you want to make a profit on AW, and made some changes that you thought would help in that department, and also with the removal of certain nodes it has made the map easier to run and I haven't seen anyone just running boss express paths now. It really is a decent map, I like the portal idea but hate the fact that one guy can tap A instead of B and it messes us up.
The miniboss nodes are nice too, but it would be more of a challenge not knowing who is where. What is the vision that you guys have for AW ? The nodes that would buff bleed or poison champs are easily countered, just bring an immune, we all know what each node on each path does as far as buffs. It would be really nice if we could assign buff placement ourselves though.
If your listening to us then miike why are you not scrapping defender diversity, bringing back defender kills an making dexterity passive. Until these 3 things are done you are blatantly ignoring what the community is asking for. Why won't you answer us on why you won't make dexterity passive ?
That's all I really have to say about this topic. Not trying t be rude just stating the facts.
they need to keep diversity. it's awesome not having to fight the 5 magiks in a row.
but yes they need to bring back defender kills and the whole dexterity thing.
If they made dexterity passive magik would not be a problem at all. Diversity is trash, we've spent money time an resources on certain defenders an now only 1 person in each by can bring that champ, I feel cheated of all my money time an hard work.
I get the map design - Adding a portal so people can help on one path instead of another is a good idea.
I don't get what the point of removing defender kills was. No one wanted that.
I know the reasons that were posted by Kabam, but the ideas behind them were weak. Dying in war should matter and having a champ that gets kills in war should always be more valuable than getting diversity points.
Please bring back defender kill points. every war has been decided once war starts since the updates.
It isn't fun to win or lose like that.
Ironically, diversity points work better with defender kills. With both points for unique defenders and points for strong defenders, players would at least have something to think about when deciding what the place. It was specifically the removal of defender kills that made diversity points especially unpalatable.
I think people would have accepted diversity points more if defender kills were not removed. And I still think there's a way to implement diversity encouragement while still valuing strong defenders in a way that doesn't discourage attacking and doesn't overemphasize defender rating while still encouraging more diverse defender placement setups. You just can't get there with node tweaks not matter how many iterations you perform. You might think you do, because of some serious issues with datamining this kind of change.
Players want more diverse defender placements. They do not want diversity dictated. They do want to make strategic decisions when placing defenders. They want to emphasize competition and the defensive performance of the champions. Kabam wants more AW participation and wants to encourage players to press attacks even when it seems unlikely the attacker will necessarily win. We can do all of that without randomly hoping to find an unlikely compromise set of numbers, by using actual intelligent design.
1. Redesign the nodes so that every node, or at least many critical nodes, emphasize at least two different defensive aspects, not just one. We know unblockable special two encourages certain kinds of defenders while unstunnable encourages different defenders. When these nodes exist we expect certain champs on unblockable 2 and others on unstunnable. But if the nodes were combo nodes, we wouldn't be sure. To make sure the nodes did not get too hard, place class limits on them. Make a node where *if* you place a mutant there it becomes unblockable 2 but if you place a science it becomes unstunnable. Something like that, just for example. That way you don't have nodes that are unstunnable and unblockable and power generating or something crazy. It shouldn't be that blatant everywhere (and probably shouldn't get too difficult which would be too harsh at lower AW tiers), but by making the node dependent on what you place there, you can add unpredictability to the map placement. The possibilities are limitless: imagine a node where skill champions get power gain, but cosmic champions heal block. I'm sure there are players that can think of all kinds of nasty combinations explicitly designed to present interesting challenges to attacking players.
2. Replace defender kill points with attacker performance points. Emphasize that we are not giving points to players "just for placing a defender." Instead, make the points the attacker gets from attacking a function of how well they attack. There are many ways to do this, and I think two function the best. If you literally do not want to discourage attacking at all, apply an attacker penalty for every revive used. This means no player is discouraged from using an attacker that is still alive - they might as well try. But a strong defender that forces players to revive attackers to continue on is more valuable than one that does not. A better attacker performance function that doesn't completely eliminate all possible attacker discouragement is one where the attacker's points are a function of the total amount of time it takes to kill the node. Anything less than one minute equals full points. Anything higher than one minute and the attacker points become equal to the base point value (say, 50) divided by the total time to kill the node in minutes. So if it takes 90 seconds to kill the node, the attacker gets 50/1.5 = 33 points. If the attacker gets killed after two minutes and then kills the node with his second attacker after 30 seconds, the attacker gets 50/2.5 = 20 points.
3. Change the diversity system so that instead of having only two kinds of defenders - unique and non-unique - we apply a scaling defender placement penalty for repeat defenders. The first defender placed gets full points, say 100. The second copy of that defender gets only 75% of full points, in this case 75. The third copy gets only 50%, or 50. The fourth gets 33%, and the fifth gets 25%. The sixth and all higher copies gets only 10%. These numbers may need to be tweaked, but the idea is that the non-unique penalty doesn't hit all at once. Players are encouraged to place more diverse defenders but it is not all or nothing. One duplicate defender doesn't cost you a lot. But repeated duplicates increase the penalty.
This system appears to have almost all the properties people are asking for. It does not discourage attacking, which solves one of Kabam's stated issues. It encourages more diverse map placement, which is something both the players and Kabam want. It discourages repeated placement of the same highest performance defenders everywhere, which is something both Kabam and the players want. But it does not dictate one specific way to place defenders, which is a major complaint about 15.X. It encourages strategic thinking. It encourages competition. It emphasizes attacker performance. It doesn't overvalue defensive placement points over strong attacking. It is unlikely to generate ties.
Every element of this solution can and should be tweaked over time to adjust to playtesting and evolving player performance. But it starts off with a fundamental design structure that *directly* attacks the problems, rather than randomly hoping to stumble into a solution by chance.
I want to also point out that defender kills are still gone. Diversity is still encouraged. The solution contains the two properties players have explicitly complained about the most, but implements both in a way that I believe would be far more palatable, and could in fact end up being better than 14.0 AW. It is possible for everyone to get what they want, if we just use the tools of intelligent design that are available to us.
Which is why I mentioned previously that Defender Kills contradict Diversity. Diversity is such a low metric that Allies will inevitably focus on Defender Kills regardless and it will leave Diversity as pretty much insignificant. Reason being, Defender Kills can mount, and Diversity is a set amount. 30 Players, 15 Item Uses each, 3 Champs to start, which means a great deal of Points to accumulate for people trying. Defender Kills are the opposite of Diversity. Which is why I stated that if they introduced it again at all, it has to be at such a low metric it doesn't become the defining metric of Wars.
Removing defender kills removed any obstacle to 100% the map. Whereas before, people are penalized rightly for playing bad and dying multiple times, now people can spend their way to a win if their defender rating is high. There is no longer any skill involved. Anyone with a bunch of units can go into war, and spend their way through it.
Spending has always been an option. The Item Use hasn't changed. There's shouldn't be a penalty for spending either. If people have to spend, that's enough as it is.
That's a straw man argument. I never said penalize for spending, I said penalize for dying. If a team dies 75 times to a single boss node, they are a worse team and should be penalized for that, versus a team who can solo a boss.