Wars

[Hugh Jazz]

The forums are only a small sample size .. There are plenty of players that have already opted out of wars across dozens of alliances. Glory is an incorrect term for the points awarded to these feeble alliances that litter the leaderboard. There is a reason usa elite are not there. They arent sellouts. And not one of the top glory alliances would ever match up against them. Its a broken system where mediocre teams are claiming they are the best because they have manipulated the system.


I can race my kids in mariokart 200 times and win 100% of the time .. I must be the best mariokart player in the world

 

[Ravenlord]

From what l can see there are plenty of players still warring despite the complaints. In fact the complaints are from people who want to war despite the exploiters.

Personally, l don't see the benefit in complaining about people trying to stay positive about the negatives. If people can't be bothered to stay positive despite the negatives I'm sure there are plenty of other posts for them.

 

[Penumbra]

USA elite is #20 on the glory board

 

[The_boogs]

Hugh Jazz, "USA elite aren't sell outs" lol, this is the same USA elite that manipulated the medals leaderboard for how many months with the loonies et al accounts? Short memory sir...

 

[Hugh Jazz]

I stand corrected. Thank you for drawing my attention to them penumbra

 

[Norcaltone]

Upon further inspection of the "leaderboard", USA Elite and 1st Dynasty have made an appearance there...by adopting the base stacking strategy...Somehow I knew the egos there couldn't go long without being recognized...congratulations on your "accomplishment" guys!!!

 

[The Divine]

I just keep raiding,researching and upgrading everything including walls.Wars are not really important to me at least for now,they dont give me much resources and most of the times I am so busy that I cant do my second attacks or the game crashes during one of my attacks.

 

[Max_imus]

Upon further inspection of the "leaderboard", USA Elite and 1st Dynasty have made an appearance there...by adopting the base stacking strategy...Somehow I knew the egos there couldn't go long without being recognized...congratulations on your "accomplishment" guys!!!

Sounds weird about USA Elite I...
I know that 1st Dynasty does that, which was btw one of the biggest surprises ever for me.

 

[GailWho]

"Glory" leaderboard in this game, in my opinion has become a misnomer. As far as I'm concerned there is no Glory in putting unused or unusable accounts in war to get a weaker opponent so you can make your way up the leaderboard. Hey but to those who have done this I suppose if the notoriety gives you a thrill, to each, his own. I for one have stopped looking at the names of alliances there because to me it doesn't mean anything. I'm just happy to fight in our wars. We go back and forth having terrible mismatches both for and against us but it's not of our doing. Everyone on our team makes an effort to fight and our weakest ones can win stars because they are fighting with more than just sticks and rocks. It's so ironic (pardon the pun) that the very thing that Loonies used to show the broken Medal system is making our new Glory leaderboard pointless as well.

When we get a terribly lopsided match, it's because the comparable teams that have adopted this method aren't available for us to fight fair and square because they are off beating up on weaker alliance depriving them of their glory. So the more teams that adopt this strategy the worse the experience it will be for all involved. When we are matched with an obviously weaker opponent the experience is far from thrilling. I'm curious as to how alliances can do this every war and feel proud of themselves and excited to fight in the next one. To me, this would get boring real fast. But I suppose moving up the pointless leaderboard is enough of a thrill to get them through the next sad war. Have fun with that As for me and my alliance, we will continue to do what we always have done. Work to get better as a team, overcome adversity, fight the good fight, and have fun in the process.

 

[Norcaltone]

Hey Gail, longtime fan new to posting here your assessment pretty much sums up what we have been and will continue doing at Boss Hoggs if u zombies ever wanna line up a 20 or 25 war we are down. These clown alliances searching for the weak kid on the playground can have their " leaderboard"

 

[GailWho]

Hey Norcaltone thanks! We are definitely up for setting up a war with you. PM me and we can set one up. Looks like our teams are pretty comparable.

 

[Europeos]

Some of you have reproached us (The 1st Dynasty) for using lower age bases to make our way up the leaderboard by winning easy wars. I feel obliged to answer that (I think) unfair criticism.
First of all, we often use no lower age bases at all and fight full force global age wars, like the last war we fought, which was against the great Korean alliance called "50".

Why do we sometimes include lower age bases then, may you ask?

The main reason is the difficulty to get a match when we don't. For example, after our last war, we searched for almost a full day with ga bases. There aren't that many alliances with our weight, which is a real problem, and I don't know how it can be solved. So we search different combos with and without low age bases to get a match reasonably quickly.

The second reason, is the stalemate situation. There is currently a huge unbalance in the game between offence and defence, which has been enhanced by the last library research introduced in the last update, especially the extra 15 seconds to get quick victory. It is now so easy to 5 star any base that most skilled alliances get a perfect score comfortably. Our last war against "50", one of the very best alliance in the game, we got perfect score on 30 bases in 33 attacks... They also got a perfect score on us in 43 attacks if I recall correctly, so it ended in a stalemate with no glory for either team. In fact we have achieved perfect score in our 17 last wars, many of which were against all ga bases. It should be much more difficult than that to get a perfect score.
This is a real problem right now for all top alliances, and as far as I am concerned the game is broken because of this. As a result, most top alliances try to avoid each other.

So I am asking those of you who criticise us: What would you do in our place? Should we stop playing this game competitively? Should we just accept that because of our weight we won't get any glory from wars? Should we be happy being stuck in 2 weeks with stalemates and endless searches? Believe us, we would much rather play full force wars against other top alliances all the time, but until the stalemate system remains the same, we will continue to adapt to the system and try to get to the top. In any case, when we use lower ages we usually use 2-6 of them in a 35-45 war, not 15, so we can't be accused of looking for easy wars I think.

 

[S_How]

So I am asking those of you who criticise us: What would you do in our place? Should we stop playing this game competitively? Should we just accept that because of our weight we won't get any glory from wars? Should we be happy being stuck in 2 weeks with stalemates and endless searches? Believe us, we would much rather play full force wars against other top alliances all the time, but until the stalemate system remains the same, we will continue to adapt to the system and try to get to the top. In any case, when we use lower ages we usually use 2-6 of them in a 35-45 war, not 15, so we can't be accused of looking for easy wars I think.

Europeos, I would argue that you have already stopped playing the game competitively if you are using even just ~5 Iron Age bases. Even that amount sways the matchmaking an unbelievable amount. Right now we are against a team (Project Tera) that has just 6 iron age bases out of 35. In this matchup, we have 7 global offenses to their 26. We have 0 global defenses to their 15+. Our number one player has a suggested target in the late teens, meaning they have ~15 players more advanced than our #1. And, teams are doing this to climb a leaderboard that pretty much everyone in the game believes to be a farce. For the top folks, the easy wins by dropping your level of competition are probably not too painful. Maybe a bit boring, and will be more boring over time. To those teams getting steamrolled, its much worse. But honestly, its neither here nor there. Even if your team and others were to take a moral stand, it would be futile since so many have adopted the strategy and probably just increase frustration amongst your team. And I bet the stalemate issues are incredibly frustrating, just like the horrible matchups for everyone else that plays against stacked teams (which you are not at risk of experiencing).

But, I dont really blame you. The system is terrible, stalemates being one of the biggest problems. It was an issue raised in the preview before glory was even released, and it was ignored. Now, stalemates along with a few other issues like opponents glory having way too much weight in the glory award system, have caused a snowball effect that makes war suck for the overwhelming majority of organized teams. Even if stalemates are fixed, if they make glory awards so dependent on oppositions glory, it will still pay to put iron age bases on your roster to search for those teams. When I look back at that preview thread, it was all about war size and average age, with a small sentence dedicated to opponents glory lol. It way beyond misleading.

The only thing I disagree with is your last paragraph. I dont think you have any right to be shielded from criticism. Any organized team has the choice to manipulate matchups so that you dont risk losing. My IA average team could drop down to fight gunpowder/enlightenment age teams and make their game miserable, and we could do it to the extent where we could be top 20 easily. Some have chosen that the leaderboard is important enough to them that they will abandon fair competition to climb it. Some havent. But either way, if Nexon doesnt fix it very soon, in a way that better rewards the top teams, the game is essentially done for anyone that cares about war.

 

[Quovatis]

Getting a perfect score in a 30v30 in 33 attacks and still only being "rewarded" by a stalemate is ridiculous. It's too easy to get a perfect score and higher skilled alliances can't shine. In other games like Clash, a perfect score in war is almost unheard of. The +15 sec quick victory research really hurt.

I know many hate the iron age stacking, but you have to understand that it's not about the leaderboard per se, it's just being able to get different matchups. It's incredibly boring to fight the same 4 alliances over and over again, 99% of the time ending in stalemates.

 

[S_How]

Getting a perfect score in a 30v30 in 33 attacks and still only being "rewarded" by a stalemate is ridiculous. It's too easy to get a perfect score and higher skilled alliances can't shine. In other games like Clash, a perfect score in war is almost unheard of. The +15 sec quick victory research really hurt.

I know many hate the iron age stacking, but you have to understand that it's not about the leaderboard per se, it's just being able to get different matchups. It's incredibly boring to fight the same 4 alliances over and over again, 99% of the time ending in stalemates.

I agree its a terrible result to get no glory from stalemates, especially with a near perfect performance against a top team. They need to either reward stalemates, or come up with a real tiebreaker. Instead of responding to the concerns that were raised even before glory was released, they did the opposite and made it even easier to 5*.

None of the top advancement teams used iron age stacking prior to the leaderboard, I think that that is a clear indication that it is at least mostly about the leaderboard. Just like fighting the same teams can get boring, I would presume fighting teams that are not capable of beating you due to an advancement gap will be boring too. And, as noted many many times, fighting the same teams and long waits for 35/40 man wars plague many teams not just the top tier. We used to wait up to a day to get matched in an IA average team. Although, now its super easy to get a 40v40, but its 100% stacked teams

 

[Radzeer]

I see many accusations being fair on unfair, and explanations about the reasons.
I don't see too much suggestions for the developers to think about a solution, so I would start here:

1) 1 attack in war (credit goes to Eddie F1, of course)
Pro: Stacking with low level bases will not be an option anymore
Con: Crashes

2) A war member is not supposed to attack more than 5 places below his war rank (#1 can attack 1-5, #2 can attack 1-6, etc)
Pro: Huge stackers (10-15 Iron Age bases will have a problem 5 starring the low end bases)
Con: Stacking up to 5 iron Age members will still do the job

3) The lowest level member in war must have at least 50% (40% or even 30%) of the level of the highest level member (if the highest level member is lvl 198, the lowest level member must be atl. lvl 99)
Pro: Stacking with bases below level 50 will be a problem for seasoned alliances
Con: Alliances will find it hard to "get and breed" new members

4) Fine tune the matchmaking: Offensive and defensive points for the alliance shall be summed up by weights: 100% for the first 20% of the crew, 85% for the second 20% of the crew, 75% for the third 20% of the crew, 50% for the fourth 20% of the crew, and 25% for the remaining 20% of the crew (in a 40vs40 war: 1-8: 100%, 9-16: 80%, 17-24: 75%, 25-32: 50% and 33-40: 25%)
Pro: Stacking will not pay off that much
Con: Alliances with evenly leveled players will have still hard time

5) Matchmaking shall be fine tuned in a way, that the "lowest level member difference" cant be more than 10 (15,20,25(?)). I.e. if an alliance with lowest level member at lvl 15, can be matched against an alliance where the lowest level member is max. at lvl 25 (30,35,40(?))
Pro: Stackers will be matched against stackers (must not be even communicated by NEXON ) )
Con: The matchmaking can take longer

All 5 changes are easy changes for the developers and would solve the "exploit", pretty much, imho

 

[S_How]

I still think the best solution to iron age stacking is to not count the bottom 25%-35% of a team in the matchmaking equation. Similar to your 3, but less complicated to put in and have people understand.

Also, just as important as this is for normal teams, they need to fix the stalemate problem. Proposed solutions have been putting in tiebreakers (fastest to perfect score seems to be the one most like) or giving max score stalemates some sort of point reward.

And finally, for pretty much everyone, they need to adjust the influence of opponents glory on glory award. War size and strength of opponent based on upgrades are almost meaningless to the glory award equation. The opposite of what was initially rolled out to us.

 

[phil_dee]

If it helps--the con listed under #2 also fits under #1 if the war rosters are large enough (negating the 'pro' in the process)

 

[S_How]

I wish it were true Ravenlord. But, I do see people walking away. I see people in my alliance only playing for the team rather than fun in the game anymore. We have gone from 45 member wars down to 30-35 to try and avoid stacked teams. And, every single day that goes by, more and more teams are adopting the practice.

 

[Vixen]

And the game degenerates further ... we shoukd name it the shame on you leaderboard... with a few exceptions like borg 2.0