Developers Q&A FAQ
Last year in April, we had a Q&A by the developers where they answered sith ton of questions that are still repeated in the forums, and elsewhere. So I decided to compile all the useful answers we had...
Forum Discussion
Territory Wars
Animefangod1: I was wondering if it was possible and if you guys ever would add a feature where you could watch your battles with other players so you could see where you are having trouble in things like arena and TW?
We had battle replays and consequently being able to watch other allies battle in the scope for Territory Wars, but unfortunately they had to come out of our update in order for us to get it done in time. There is significant tech work required for synchronous gameplay events which we just don't have at the moment but would really love to do in the future.
Sparrow: You mentioned battle replays are still a ways off, as a stop gap would it be possible/easier to let us see the team that attacked us in TW and its end state?
Would love to, but some of the tech required to preserve the history of the team that attacked you is needed as well. When we realized we couldn't get the battle replays in, we didn't want to ask the engineers to do the underlying tech first.
Why can we not change/edit/move Defense squads in TW during the setup phase?
Matchmaking is done after setup to ensure your guild is accurately matched up against another guild. If you can change your defensive squads after moving into the offense phase, then it would be optimal to pull all your mods off characters and not level characters up and only do it after the attack phase has started. That encourages a different type of play, one based around faking out your opponent, and while we certainly want to offer different game experiences, it is not the intent of Territory Wars at this time.
Thanks for answering my question, but I was asking about changing TW defense squads DURING the setup phase, not after it has concluded.
Characters lock at the end of the preview phase, so there would be no way to move mods, upgrade toon, or things like that. I think we all understand why that's important.
I'm asking about changing squad lineups/positions on the field during the setup phase BEFORE offense phase starts. Can we not get the ability to move or change squad lineups?
My bad, here’s your redo.
I don’t know but I think it was something we didn’t think of before TW launches (it’s not always easy to think of all the ways people will use or have issues with a system. And since then it hasn’t surfaced to be a pervasive issue. I’ll put it down on our QoL list though and see how much work it would be (it would require client work to select and undo a squad and possibly some other edge cases I’m too tired to think of right now.)
I’m sure you saw we did take defaulting most powerful squads into the TW select squad screen because we saw a lot of people accidentally hitting deploy with the wrong squad autopopulating. That is the first step to this fix and is an indicator that we will continue to improve this system.
Thanks for the clarification!
-C
legitimationcrisis: What happens when there is an odd number of guilds participating in TW?
The guild with the lowest participant GP, while still meeting the 25 member requirement will be considered the "odd man out" and will receive an Inbox message stating that we couldn't find them an opponent and 1st place rewards for their bracket (which likely is the lowest bracket).
Is TW on the verge of going away?
If it is staying for the long haul, are you open to player input about the match making and rewards structure?
Territory Wars are not on the verge of going away, Territory Battles and Territory Wars were two modes that were intended to satisfy different player types. Battles is where people with collections can show off and Wars is where people who are particularly good at PVP can show off. That's a real simplification of all the intention, but they are meant to be hand in hand in that way.
The ties solution had the objective to be granular enough to really address ties. Some suggestions we pulled from our beta team had different solutions but weren't granular enough to knock them out completely. Ties, btw, are basically gone at this point - but we expect them to come back as players get better and better.
That being said, we are open to player feedback for sure, and part of our communication strategy is going to be about how we can better create two-way dialogue on topics like these.
Hello!! Can you provide any clarity on why a more complex TW pairing method is superior to simply matching closely on GP of participating members? Shouldn't GP capture additional factors like # of G12, rosters, etc...?
GP while intended to reflect the overall power of characters doesn't always capture the nuance of good synergies and so while it can be a benchmark for overall power - it is actually not sufficient for something as intricate as matchmaking. Nightsisters are good example of where the GP doesn't reflect the power of the squad.
Animefangod1: I was wondering if it was possible and if you guys ever would add a feature where you could watch your battles with other players so you could see where you are having trouble in things like arena and TW?
We had battle replays and consequently being able to watch other allies battle in the scope for Territory Wars, but unfortunately they had to come out of our update in order for us to get it done in time. There is significant tech work required for synchronous gameplay events which we just don't have at the moment but would really love to do in the future.
Sparrow: You mentioned battle replays are still a ways off, as a stop gap would it be possible/easier to let us see the team that attacked us in TW and its end state?
Would love to, but some of the tech required to preserve the history of the team that attacked you is needed as well. When we realized we couldn't get the battle replays in, we didn't want to ask the engineers to do the underlying tech first.
Why can we not change/edit/move Defense squads in TW during the setup phase?
Matchmaking is done after setup to ensure your guild is accurately matched up against another guild. If you can change your defensive squads after moving into the offense phase, then it would be optimal to pull all your mods off characters and not level characters up and only do it after the attack phase has started. That encourages a different type of play, one based around faking out your opponent, and while we certainly want to offer different game experiences, it is not the intent of Territory Wars at this time.
Thanks for answering my question, but I was asking about changing TW defense squads DURING the setup phase, not after it has concluded.
Characters lock at the end of the preview phase, so there would be no way to move mods, upgrade toon, or things like that. I think we all understand why that's important.
I'm asking about changing squad lineups/positions on the field during the setup phase BEFORE offense phase starts. Can we not get the ability to move or change squad lineups?
My bad, here’s your redo.
I don’t know but I think it was something we didn’t think of before TW launches (it’s not always easy to think of all the ways people will use or have issues with a system. And since then it hasn’t surfaced to be a pervasive issue. I’ll put it down on our QoL list though and see how much work it would be (it would require client work to select and undo a squad and possibly some other edge cases I’m too tired to think of right now.)
I’m sure you saw we did take defaulting most powerful squads into the TW select squad screen because we saw a lot of people accidentally hitting deploy with the wrong squad autopopulating. That is the first step to this fix and is an indicator that we will continue to improve this system.
Thanks for the clarification!
-C
legitimationcrisis: What happens when there is an odd number of guilds participating in TW?
The guild with the lowest participant GP, while still meeting the 25 member requirement will be considered the "odd man out" and will receive an Inbox message stating that we couldn't find them an opponent and 1st place rewards for their bracket (which likely is the lowest bracket).
Is TW on the verge of going away?
If it is staying for the long haul, are you open to player input about the match making and rewards structure?
Territory Wars are not on the verge of going away, Territory Battles and Territory Wars were two modes that were intended to satisfy different player types. Battles is where people with collections can show off and Wars is where people who are particularly good at PVP can show off. That's a real simplification of all the intention, but they are meant to be hand in hand in that way.
The ties solution had the objective to be granular enough to really address ties. Some suggestions we pulled from our beta team had different solutions but weren't granular enough to knock them out completely. Ties, btw, are basically gone at this point - but we expect them to come back as players get better and better.
That being said, we are open to player feedback for sure, and part of our communication strategy is going to be about how we can better create two-way dialogue on topics like these.
Hello!! Can you provide any clarity on why a more complex TW pairing method is superior to simply matching closely on GP of participating members? Shouldn't GP capture additional factors like # of G12, rosters, etc...?
GP while intended to reflect the overall power of characters doesn't always capture the nuance of good synergies and so while it can be a benchmark for overall power - it is actually not sufficient for something as intricate as matchmaking. Nightsisters are good example of where the GP doesn't reflect the power of the squad.
