Just wanta throw out a huge thanks for all this haywire. Definitely helps out those of us not chosen
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This is something weāre pretty against as well. We donāt want you to pay for battle points making this a pay-to-win event
I wouldnāt worry too much about those bottom 6 Alliances. We choose 60 Alliances for this test. The extra 6 are for a different reason.
Iām loving this thread. Iāve been sending it around the office to make sure everyone can see it.
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Hope itās of some use. Plan is to continue updating throughout the entire Beta. Next week will be a bit hard because I have exams each day but shouldnāt stop me from getting in my attacks and defenses. Are you guys making any changes as Beta progresses or are you just waiting til it ends?
We have changes going into the game, nothing that will impact you guys as the test goes. Will impact the next test
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So far we have seen little to no bugs. One time people couldnāt log on but it cleared up fast. This is a couple of things we came up with to help improve the experience. Other than that it is by far my favorite game mode. I look forward to seeing the final product.
Allow for truce
Leader can see how many battle points his members have left
Click on an alliance it takes you to their alliance page
Clicking on a players name takes you to their profile
Some of these may have been said before.
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Day 3 - Boom, Here Comes the Boom!
The battle goes on and weāre starting to get the hang of this. Weāve increased our overall ranking to #6 amongst all alliances and staying firm at #2 on our own map.
Weāve almost found all alliances on our map. Just left with one but I believe I know which one it is. Weāre surrounded by Patriotic Bastards (UNSAM) on our southwest flank, Ghost Legends (TGL4E) taking up a majority of our southern flank, 2UP to our east, and its looking like Already Heroes (OUI) is in the southeast corner although the one tile I saw of thereās on the map was taken over by 2UP before I could grab a screen shot.
Some new things weāre learning along the way. Team power is not the overall deciding factor. Team composition when it comes to type matters just as much. I attacked a team on a tile with the opposing team having around 82k and my team was at 87k. I lost (and wasted 5 battle points in return) because my hero team composition was weak against the opposing team composition. So you really need to be careful with that. Brute force does not always work.
Weāve made our way to 2UPās HQ tile and I was thinking that if we could take out that tile, weād knock them off the map. Alas, the tile is unattackable. Not really sure the purpose that tile serves then. If anything, maybe a HQ tile can be a five star tile and hold 30 teams in it. That would require a very concerted effort to take it. The way it currently is, it means nothing (I think).
Back to combat talk, one thing that I think needs to be looked at is combat itself. Weāre currently at a standstill on one tile because the opposing alliance has a team in the tile with a power of 94k. No one on my team has a team stronger than about 92k. Thereās no way we can take out that tile at this point. Which leads to scenarios where the system can be taken advantage of as I mentioned in a previous post. Before I speak of this situation, this is what weāre dealing with (damn you Gaffar!)
So hereās where the system can be taken advantage of. Currently, everyone gets frustrated in PVP when folks use the min/max technique. There could be alliances that stack 10-15 positions with very big hitters and then the rest with low level players in hopes of getting favorable matchups since wars are based on team power. If this happens, opposing teams wonāt stand a chance because if they have a normal alliance, none of their players will have team powers to rival those of the big hitters. So tiles will become impossible to hit causing much frustration.
Iād suggest considering a slight change to combat. Iām assuming that the battle between two teams is simulated in the background and a win or loss is decided since the whole thing is automated. Perhaps change it up a bit. When you actually run through PVP or gauntlet and play against AI, even if you donāt win, you can damage the opposing team, either killing a hero or reducing its health. So I suggest doing something similar when you automate the battles. Even if my team is underpowered, thereās a chance I may damage the opposing team, reducing their team power by a bit or removing a hero from that team. Which would mean even weaker opponents would have a chance if they concentrate their attacks on one team. This is fair because it gives them a chance and they still have to use battle points to do it. Just a thought.
Some other things Iāve seen that could use some consideration by the dev team:
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Alliance Wars chat is definitely needed, even more so now that we have bounty going on. Some alliances like to use alliance chat for calling bounties. If we have bounty going on at the same time as alliance wars, holy hell does that create mass hysteria in chat. You can coordinate attacks, call bounties, and shoot the sh!t when in one chat room.
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Alliance treaties: the more I play, the more this becomes important. If two or more alliances team up, there needs to be some way to coordinate amongst alliances. Right now, weāre dealing with making sure people in the alliance donāt mess up and break truces which still happens. Also, if two alliances want to attack a common enemy, itās damn near impossible. It all has to be done offline since comms are limited to the people who formed the treaty.
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Map Fog of War: I get it at the beginning. Keep everyone in the dark and then formulate plans as the battle unfolds. However, as it unfolds and treaties are made, itās damn near impossible to figure out who to ally with or best avenue of attack to help a fellow ally. Perhaps consider that if a truce is made, the map that the other alliance sees becomes visible to your alliance so coordination can happen.
Right now I see bugger all so Iām just going off of what others say.
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Forget the pay to win model for this. It would be cool to attack a tile, take it over and find out that as a bonus, you get a extra hour of shield or some other cool bonus effect. It would encourage a lot more attacking and exploring, offering the benefits of bonuses without the need to pay.
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Bugs: I found two but forgot to capture the second one in a screenshot. Iāll discuss the latter first as best as possible. When i place a marker on a tile, if my teammates take over that tile, it still appears as if itās still under attack. When I click the tile, the tile is still the color of the opposing team with the under attack blinking hexagon inside it but my fellow teammates are occupying it. When I remove the marker from it and back out of Alliance Wars event and then go back in, the tile is ours and is indicate correctly.
The other thing I noticed is when I exited out of the application, I got a notification that a tile was taken over. However, the message made not sense as I had no idea what it was referencing.
EDIT: One other thing that is annoying as hell involves the main alliance screen. The red dot that indicates that your patrols are complete or you can buy something from the alliance store appears in the member button. At first, I thought it had something to do with member requests or something so I constantly clicked members to see what was new and then I realized that it was a design flaw since you can scroll the screen over and the red dot moves correctly. Perhaps consider moving that dot tot he left side of the Alliance Patrols box.
Other than that, seems pretty good so far.
As usual, if anyone has questions or wants to know about something, please let me know.
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This is a must. Canāt tell you how much of our chat is filled with questions about who has battle points left.
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It so far looks like a cool game mode so far! As the wars are being developed, I do wonder if the navigation throughout the game will be more and more convoluted for new players.
A tutorial/navigational video might be a useful for new players, just to get an idea of where everything is. For further detailing, maybe a shorter, brief video for each tab (Quests, Missions, etc.) could provide more specifics as to what HH has to offer. This would probably be especially useful with the Alliances, talking about the benefits available, as well as what wars and patrols are.
(Random P.S.) As a small side note, the special offers tab takes up a large portion of the screen, and seems to crowd out the missions quite a bit. Just something that came to mind.
Pour information et par expĆ©rience, nous avons vaincu une Ć©quipe Ć 102k avec seulement une Ć©quipes Ć 88k, il y a un ratio de probabilitĆ© en fonction des dĆ©fenses et des attaques
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Made me work for that one! Thank you Google translate!
For those that just want to see what he said:
For information and experience, we beat a team at 102k with only one team at 88k, there is a probability ratio according to the defenses and attacks
This is good to know. So there is a chance. Just need to find the right matchup. Just donāt want to waste 15 battle points trying to figure it out.
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Sorry lol, yes indeed else we also lost with more powerful teams
Day 4 - Let the Bodies Hit the Floor
All I can say st this point is that Alliance Wars is definitely a huge addition to the game and one that will placate everyoneās desire for more content. I actually enjoy it more than Bounty. HHG is gonna have to try to find a balance between this event and all others because this is truly engaging for those that love strategy. Donāt get me wrong, bounty is fun but itās truly all about power and grinding. 6 months ago, it consumed most of our day and then HHG shortened the event in half and it consumed less but it was still a grind. Alliance Wars isnāt a grind but itās far more engaging. Coordinating attacks, determining strategy, communicating coordinates, and forging treaties (to just name a few) is way more involved if done correctly. I truly find it one of the most (if not the most) enjoyable aspects of the game. If you love chess and strategy, youāre gonna be as giddy as me about this event. Iāll quit fawning over it for now. All Iāll say is that this sh!t is fun! Iām 100% sure 99% of you will love it.
On to the days events and new findings. Weāve held strong at #2 on map and #5 overall.
Weāve continued to win and lose territories and seem to be making progress on our right flank.
Weāve learned some new things today based on recent developments and we still have questions about some things that maybe the devs can answer because thereās no in game explanation.
We started cutting through 2UPs territory until we hit their edge of the map. When we hit the final tile, we saw that when we cut off the northern portion from the southern portion, the tiles that were disconnected from the HQ were filled with a striped pattern.
When you click on a tile with this pattern, it doesnāt give any information as to what the stripes mean. In fact, when you click on your HQ tile, it shows the different types of tiles but doesnāt say what they mean. I found myself tapping and even holding the different images in hopes of getting an explanation but no luck.
One of the officers in my alliance even reached out to the opposing alliance to see if they knew what it meant or if it told them what it meant but still no luck. The only info I could gather was from the activity that can be seen in either the tile or when you click on HQ and review activity.
So at this point I have two theories that Iām hoping someone can shed light on. Iām pretty sure the first is definitely true but not sure on the second.
For the first, I believe when you split an opponents territory in half, the tiles that have a striped pattern no longer generate points for the opposing team. Iām fairly certain this is true because 2UP has dropped drastically in ranking since we split them. The second, which I donāt know is true or not, is that they are cut off from reinforcing the territory with defense teams. Would love to know what it is though.
This brings me to a tip for everyone playing in the future. The wars are based off of points. Each tile generates a set number of points per hour. Even if your team doesnāt have a lot of points initially, if you pinpoint your attacks correctly, you can easily overcome your opponents. Once you cut off territories, they donāt generate for the opponent which means they generate less and you generate more. Like I said, strategy is everything!
Anyway, I continue to make mistakes which end up being good learning experiences and hopefully you guys wonāt make the same ones. Today, a tile cane under attack and I had two teams in the tile. I had and extra team of heroes that had a higher team power than one of the teams I had in the tile. I assumed that defending a tile was the same as a tile under attack so I removed the low team from the tile in hopes of adding my higher team. Nope. Big mistake. Thereās a big button next to teams that are in a tile under attack that says Retreat. If you click that and remove the team, you cannot backfill it.
We keep shifting defenses around to different tiles as the game progresses. As I mentioned previously, itās hard to keep track of where you left defenses if youāre not aware of what to look for. One indicator is the little green bar on a tile.
Another way is when youāre going to defend a new tile, you can click on it and it will say who is available to defend the territory and then it will show a list of who is unavailable.
When you click on a hero unavailable, you can actually move them to the new tile. When you do, it will tell you where the hero was previously located.
Another thing I keep mentioning, team composition definitely matters! Even if your team power is 5-10k stronger, you can still lose. Be very careful what you attack with. It sucks when you waste 5 battle points on what you think is a sure win.
For the devs, just a repeat of things I think should be incorporated:
- Alliance War Chat - itās nearly impossible to coordinate without this.
- Treaties - Alliances are extremely important with this new event type and forming treaties amongst allies is even more so.
- Bonuses - I still have yet to find out what these gems are that someone told me about but it would be cool if we could take over a tile and randomly get an extra hour or two of shields or maybe even a strong AI defending team.
- Battle Points - refresh after 12 hours. No more, no less.
Thatās about it for now. Weāve got a little over 2.5 days left to go in this first war so Iām excited to see how things unfold. As usual, let me know if you have any questions!
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You wonāt be able to get ahold of our Commander, as he is pretty inactiveā¦ 
However, I can spread some light on the splitting of territories from the Defending Teamās POV.
This is not true according to this screenshot:
I added up all the tiles that are controlled by us (even the disconnected ones) and they all contributed to the Total points per hour.
Also, the disconnected tiles still say they are controlled by us.
This is not true eitherā¦
I removed defenses from one of the disconnected nodes, and I was still able to re-add defenses to it after that.
What IS true, is that we cannot ATTACK, or shall I say, RECAPTURE a Sectorās āZoneā that an opposing alliance is attempting to take from usā¦ Basically, a striped node is free pickings, because we canāt attack the stolen āZoneā backā¦
I believe the HQ tile serves as the defining tile for territory splittageā¦
The GOAL is to completely surround the 6 tiles encircling the HQ tile, which will temporarily but effectually cut-off the alliance from Recapturing/Attacking tiles from anywhere else on the map.
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Thanks for the clarification! That makes more sense.
Does this means you canāt attack from that tile either? Are you able to attack any of our surrounding tiles, excluding the ones that are bordering your connected tiles?
Appreciate your feedback @Poobgloob and props to you and your alliance for being good sports! Love that weāre all learning this together.
Day 5 - Battle for the Alamo
Weāve got a little over a day left and things are starting to wrap up for this first war but there were a couple of highlights.
Weāre still sitting in 5th overall and 2nd on our map. Pretty sure thereās no way we make a play for 1st on our map and I believe we have a comfortable enough lead that we wonāt lose our position either.
If this event is really 6 days per war, then the leaderboard will pretty much be set by Day 4 (in most cases).
Our advance into 2UP territory continues but as @Poobgloob pointed out, I think they pretty much stopped putting effort into it after day 3 or so because their commander was away and such.
In the meantime, OUI started advancing north and then when battlepoints reset, OUI, TGL4E and ya all made a play for one 2 star tile.
This was actually a lesson learned in tactics. TGL4E saw that the defenses OUI had in place were weak. We did also. TGL4E went in with some weak team but before they could take the tile, I sent in some of my team to hit theirs and OUIs last remaining teams. I was impatient and didnāt wait for a fellow teammate to attack at the same time. I was more worried about TGL4E taking the tile and shield going up so I rushed ahead and attacked. At the same time they attacked and both alliances realized we were online and fighting at the same time. It became very apparent that we needed the big hitters in to attack and hold the tile.
I was fairly certain after they kicked out my 92k team that they would take the tile but One of our officers, Smity0, knocked out RustyRyan and we were able to hold onto a piece of it by the skin of our teeth. Whatās interesting to note is that even though OUI no longer has teams in the tile, they still own it since no one has actually won it outright.
One issue (maybe a bug) we noticed is that one of the tiles has a player that doesnāt belong to an alliance which is weird.
Not sure what the situation is with Final Boss but itās apparent he doesnāt have an alliance so maybe he left 2UP during the event. If thatās the case, his teams should automatically be pulled out of the tiles he was defending.
As for my thoughts thus far, in addition to what Iāve akreasy said, I think that:
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You guessed it - need to have an alliance Wars chat and treaty capability. Iāve Harper in that enough. Not gonna tough it anymore.
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How people build teams is going to change. Team power means a lot. Consider you only have 15 battle points, your top 15 are the ones you will tend to focus on to ensure you bring your strongest teams to the war.
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If the above happens, it may lead to unbalanced wars. You will have some alliances where the players have balanced teams throughout with no one team significantly stronger than the other. And then you will have alliances with players that have extremely strong top 15 heroes but very low heroes in the rest which can result in an imbalanced matchup. Not sure how to counteract this other than to allow players to chip away at team power as I mentioned in a previous post.
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Alliance recruitment will change is alliance war rewards are good. I can totally see messagesnincludkng top 5 team power, in addition to bounty requirements and such.
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It might be a good idea to randomize the map every war. If itās repetitive, alliances are going to know exactly what to shoot for right from the start leaving little to the imagination.
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Commanders and officers need to see a way of who has battle points left. In bounty, we can see how much damage a player does. AW doesnāt focus on damage and relies more on points. Sonneed something to see who has what points left.
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Communication and coordination is everything. If you donāt have a good commander, chain of command, and communications amongst your alliance, the wars will be tough. Being a team player, following orders, and coordinating with the whole alliance is key to winning.
Tomorrowās post will be the final post for the first week before we move into the next war. Iāll continue to post in this thread until the event is over. As always, let me know if you have any questions.
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Day 6 - I Got My Mind on Points and Points on My Mind
Well folks, the first war is coming to a close. Nearly a week has come and gone and I can truly say I canāt wait to see this in full production!
Not much changed from yesterday for us. Weāre still #2 on the map and #5 overall.
Didnāt really learn anything new today. We were hoping to cut off all the tiles around 2UP HQ just to see what happens but no luck. We ended up just taking a few more tiles and then fighting some skirmishes on our southern border.
Iām sure there are probably a few things I still havenāt covered so hopefully Iāll learn about those in the next war. If what the devs said is true, there should be some changes to the next war which could mix things up a bit.
One thing I did note on this map is that there is a circle of power in the middle of the map.
Control that circle, you control the map due to the amount of point that little circle generates as well as the strategic vantage point you have from there. Iāve got a few ideas I want to test for the next war but donāt wanna spoil it here just yet.
In regard to the map, I actually hope it changes each war. Knowing where the majority of points are located from the get go isnāt fun. Would be better to explore and find them.
I donāt foresee much happening between now and the reset so that all for now folks. Feel free to ask me any questions you may have. Iāll be sure to continue posting here for the next round of war.
This is Sparta!
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My HQ is soon taken over by another alliance. Letās see what happens.
Wait, your HQ got taken over? How? Aside from surrounding it completely weāve tried everything else and it doesnāt seem to work. Any insight is much appreciated.
I donāt know if they can take it over yet but they have it soon totally surrounded. I was just thinking maybe the āmain goalā is to eventually take over another allianceās HQ but since this doesnāt seem to happen then maybe youāre right; it could be impossible.
Yeah weāve come to the conclusion that you canāt actually take over a HQ, only surround it. The folks in my alliance were bummed about this. Feel like you should be able to take it over and ten the alliance who got taken over disappears from the map for the remainder of that war.
On a side note, an alliance member suggested that when attacking a team in a tile, we should be able to see % chance of winning, similar to how patrols work. If the suggestions Iāve made above about the battle canāt be done or wonāt be done anytime soon, I feel this might be the simplest enhancement to better inform us whether to waste the 5 battle points or not.
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