War #10 - Suggestions and Feedback

[iancudorinmarian]

Can we finally share information with other teams? I thought having alliances was a big thing in Wars??

I'm up for alliances, that would certainly add a lot of strategy to war. It's definitely worth a shot at least one war.
We might have to discuss some restriktions though. Like from when is it allowed to start an alliance, with how many teams, what information will be allowed to be shared, for how long can an alliance last, are they secret or do they have to be declared, does any special rules apply in an alliance like fewer upps, other battle traits, card restriktion etc, how many alliances are you allowed to have in one war.

I think alliances definitely would make war more of a mindgame and increase the chance of weak elements to become competitive.

Sounds way too complicated, and there's really no way to "limit" this with restrictions.

[JonathanCrazyJ]

Can we finally share information with other teams? I thought having alliances was a big thing in Wars??

I'm up for alliances, that would certainly add a lot of strategy to war. It's definitely worth a shot at least one war.
We might have to discuss some restriktions though. Like from when is it allowed to start an alliance, with how many teams, what information will be allowed to be shared, for how long can an alliance last, are they secret or do they have to be declared, does any special rules apply in an alliance like fewer upps, other battle traits, card restriktion etc, how many alliances are you allowed to have in one war.

I think alliances definitely would make war more of a mindgame and increase the chance of weak elements to become competitive.

Sounds way too complicated, and there's really no way to "limit" this with restrictions.

So much drama after the inevitable back stabbing...

kinda love the idea of having no restriction on conversations even though it's obviously unbalanced and would create massive drama lol

either that, or, like BS said, make alliances an actual mechanic ad try to balance and police it, for example letting WMs know you are have made an alliance, and then all conversations have to take place in a special pad that WMs have access to

[worldwideweb3]

Some elements rely more on perm and spells than others so it will harm those elements a lot more (RIP adrena RIP sanc miracle RIP poor elements)
That is true. But also rip fractal feast, rip sofree feast, rip nova feast, rip strong elements.
I don't think there's an issue with good cards being used, tbh. Every team has good cards that can beat other decks if they make their vault well. Do people really wanna see subpar decks containing salvagers and vultures And other useless stuff? Actually, yes that's exactly what we want. Big parts of the war meta has been the same since the beginning. I think it's about time the strong cards are less used and more creativity is added to war. These cards are good only in few decks so it makes sense that less of them are used. Right. But there's plenty of semi good decks that aren't used because everyone uses the same old good decks that we've seen in large number forever.

I would argue fractal nova damage weak elements too. Fractal and nova are universal cards that can be used by anyone.
Also, no, i do not believe that the biggest pvp event should be featuring subpar decks consisting of phase salvager decks beating antlion/vulture decks. That makes it a joke, imo.

[majofa]

Can we finally share information with other teams? I thought having alliances was a big thing in Wars??

I'm up for alliances, that would certainly add a lot of strategy to war. It's definitely worth a shot at least one war.
We might have to discuss some restriktions though. Like from when is it allowed to start an alliance, with how many teams, what information will be allowed to be shared, for how long can an alliance last, are they secret or do they have to be declared, does any special rules apply in an alliance like fewer upps, other battle traits, card restriktion etc, how many alliances are you allowed to have in one war.

I think alliances definitely would make war more of a mindgame and increase the chance of weak elements to become competitive.

Sounds way too complicated, and there's really no way to "limit" this with restrictions.

So much drama after the inevitable back stabbing...

kinda love the idea of having no restriction on conversations even though it's obviously unbalanced and would create massive drama lol

either that, or, like BS said, make alliances an actual mechanic ad try to balance and police it, for example letting WMs know you are have made an alliance, and then all conversations have to take place in a special pad that WMs have access to

No mechanic.. share what you want to share (whether true or not).

[Blacksmith]

Some elements rely more on perm and spells than others so it will harm those elements a lot more (RIP adrena RIP sanc miracle RIP poor elements)
That is true. But also rip fractal feast, rip sofree feast, rip nova feast, rip strong elements.
I don't think there's an issue with good cards being used, tbh. Every team has good cards that can beat other decks if they make their vault well. Do people really wanna see subpar decks containing salvagers and vultures And other useless stuff? Actually, yes that's exactly what we want. Big parts of the war meta has been the same since the beginning. I think it's about time the strong cards are less used and more creativity is added to war. These cards are good only in few decks so it makes sense that less of them are used. Right. But there's plenty of semi good decks that aren't used because everyone uses the same old good decks that we've seen in large number forever.

I would argue fractal nova damage weak elements too. Fractal and nova are universal cards that can be used by anyone. Fair point, agreed.
Also, no, i do not believe that the biggest pvp event should be featuring subpar decks consisting of phase salvager decks beating antlion/vulture decks. That makes it a joke, imo.

Some people think the whole idea of a restricted war is pointless. That the amount of cards in vault only decides how many games you play a round and not which cards you're allowed to use. The restriktions are there for a reason. They balance elements, they create more creativity, they create lots of strategy and they make war less repetitive. All I'm suggesting is that in order to make it less repetitive and more versatile we add to that restriktion a bit. I don't think that would make war a joke at all but rather expand the meta.
And no I don't think we should draw the restriktions to a point where antlion/vulture decks are the best teams can come up with. It's about finding a balance in between.

[Zawadx]

Can we finally share information with other teams? I thought having alliances was a big thing in Wars??

I don't see what free information sharing would achieve? Most of the info that teams have in war is already public, in the form of all the decks being used each round. Sure teams could trade information about what they discarded/salvaged or what cards they have left in vault, but that is always going to be a zero-sum game and thus inherently bad for some party. Also all the lies going around probably makes most of the info useless anyways.

I have thought about mechanics which would allow alliances to come into war, such as non-aggression pacts or trade deals. But they are usually too imbalanced to work in practice, or too complicated to patch up all the imbalances. If they were the key mechanic the complexity wouldn't be an issue, but the rules would be layered on top of the already complex vault system, where vault management and testing already take up significant time for top teams. At some point the complexity becomes meaningless and people will simply choose the easy option without much thought.

We could also try mechanics which aren't exactly alliances, but are inspired from diplomacy. e.g. you might be able to give a team 5 cards from their element, in exchange for starting the next match vs them with one free game win. But these have to be drastic and high-risk, high-reward to have a real effect. Perhaps one might be used as an EC, but I don't see them becoming part of War in general.

And a big issue with allowing alliances is that it will further exacerbate the problem of middle teams playing to not lose and obtain the best rank possible and making bottom teams suffer. What I foresee is a top team and a middle team allying to target other middle teams and bottom teams, while the top teams stay relatively untouched. No one is going to agree to an equal partnership with a bottom team that's soon to be eliminated, and unequal partnerships are simply going to tip the scales even farther for the teams on top.

[Aves]

I think it's an interesting idea, even if it might be hard to figure out how to implement it. Consider an alliance precisely as a bunch of small mechanics.

Example mechanic: Gain X extra upgrades in a match if you and your allied element face the same enemy element (only works on one match).

Example mechanic: You may choose to transfer X upgrades from a match into an allied match if you and your ally face the same element opponent.

Example mechanic: Lose X upgrades in all matches with your ally.

Example mechanic: Discard X cards from your vault to forge an alliance (max Y alliances. Y may depend on your current placements-- top teams can have fewer alliances. A forced alliance retraction incurs the same penalty as breaking one would)

Example mechanic: Lose X upgrades in your next match against to break your alliance with them. Salvage and Discard are doubled.

Example mechanic: Discard is reduced by X against your ally/Salvage is increased by X against your ally.

[worldwideweb3]

Nah, teams make it way too complicated. If you can't form alliance with anyone, or they are a weak team and die, then you are at a disadvantage which ain't your fault.

[Aves]

If you form an alliance and they die, you just form a new alliance, if anybody is willing. If you are unable to form an alliance, well, why would that be the case? Ideally, alliance mechanics favor (slightly) the less well off teams, as that's why we're considering them as a thing in the first place.

[iancudorinmarian]

Shouldn't we try to simplify war to make it more attractive to newbies rather than adding a bunch of silly rules and confuse everyone...?

[worldwideweb3]

Imagine working hard as a team to get a good position and two teams form an alliance to hunt you down. I know i would be annoyed if i was that team, and it would create for a bad experience for all the members in that team.

[Aves]

Shouldn't we try to simplify war to make it more attractive to newbies rather than adding a bunch of silly rules and confuse everyone...?

You're not wrong, but I think the issue here is that war rules as a whole are stagnant, and alliances would be one way to shake things up a bit. Definitely open to ideas. One caveat against the simplification argument is that War has already been getting simplified over time. Consider that roles can now be freely swapped around, for example-- most roles are insignificant compared to what they were in earlier times.

Imagine working hard as a team to get a good position and two teams form an alliance to hunt you down. I know i would be annoyed if i was that team, and it would create for a bad experience for all the members in that team.

The stuff I put above was just for example purposes, but let's use them as a test case, then. A good ruleset should be able to withstand teams trying to exploit them in their favor. Therefore, how do weaker teams exploit the proposed example mechanics to take down a higher placed team?

I think it's an interesting idea, even if it might be hard to figure out how to implement it. Consider an alliance precisely as a bunch of small mechanics.

Example mechanic: Gain X extra upgrades in a match if you and your allied element face the same enemy element (only works on one match).
Let's say and are allies, and both face this round. This is a straight boost, so both and would gain upgrades against in that one match if they agree to target the matchups. Therefore, has two matches where its enemies gain X upgrades. X will likely be a low number, between 1-3, and only if both and both pick the matchup to apply this to. This is a small edge to 's opponents, but likely not a big one-- certainly less impactful than most ECs.

Example mechanic: You may choose to transfer X upgrades from a match into an allied match if you and your ally face the same element opponent.
Let's say and are allies, and both face this round. This is a zero sum, so the total of and upgrades against in the two matches is the same. Depending on how they choose to transfer the upgrades and what value X has, one of 's matches is significantly harder, but the other will be significantly easier. Any disadvantage has in one matchup is mirrored by the equal advantage in the other.

Example mechanic: Lose X upgrades in all matches with your ally.
Not really applicable to the current question of exploits.

Example mechanic: Discard X cards from your vault to forge an alliance (max Y alliances. Y may depend on your current placements-- top teams can have fewer alliances. A forced alliance retraction incurs the same penalty as breaking one would)
This encourages alliances not to be used, as you never really want to discard cards from your vault. A maximum cap only further reduces the # of alliances formed.

Example mechanic: Lose X upgrades in your next match against to break your alliance with them. Salvage and Discard are doubled.
One way to safeguard against betrayal, raise the stakes in the next match while also being weakened in it.

Example mechanic: Discard is reduced by X against your ally/Salvage is increased by X against your ally.
Net bonus in cards for being in an alliance.

I can see why people have reservations against the concept as a whole, but what you describe as 'hunting a stronger team down' shouldn't be a concern if balanced correctly, and I don't see how any of the example mechanics would enable that.