Engineering screwing wars AGAIN.

[Noctaire]

The worst thing you can have, is a max defensive base in war. It's weight is so close to a new TH level above it, that it will often be quote paired up with a TH above or a .5. There is ZERO reason to stay at a TH, once your defense is maxed and it shouldn't be before your offense is. You need to pace your defensive upgrades, if you want to max offense/defense at the same time. It takes planning, strategy and patience to create a good base, that is a benefit, not detriment in war.

Some people feel that maxing defense should give you and advantage. Well it does, in the farming side of the game. You will lose less loot/trophies if you have a maxed out base. BUT in war, it's the absolute worst thing you can do. I see clans all the time with a bunch of maxed out TH8/9/10s, that get matched up with a clan that has lots of .5s or newer THs a level above most of theirs. It's the way the game works. If you can't adjust and accept it and do something about it, then I don't know what to say, besides find another game that rewards maxing things out.

Should war be simply about attacking, or is the strategy of base building, knowledge of war weight, obtaining players with the right weight bases etc, also play a part??

FWIW, I'm going to disagree in part. Maxing defense provides no advantages in this game - not even in the farming side of the game. I have rushed games and I have maxed games; the amount of loot lost is essentially the same. Maxed games tend to attract stronger, better attackers in the farming game (with stronger armies) which means you're likely to lose just as much if not more than a rushed game that attracts weaker opponents who think they can take your game down easily. My rushed TH11 is a prime example; it gets attacked like clockwork within minutes of coming off shield yet it loses very little; typically less than my lower TH games. That's in spite of being attacked by max troops and heroes. Players look at it, think it's an easy win, then find out differently. (In fact, it often defends and gains stars; it's pulled in several hundred stars over the course of a few weeks' defenses.)

Clan wars should be about skills, base design, and strategy. Ideally the matchmaking algorithm should enable the most "even" trials of these. Knowledge of war weight...that's not really being used to test one's mettle against a reasonably equal opponent. There are some (many?) who use their knowledge of war weight to pace their game's development; as you said, getting offense going while managing defensive upgrades to not make one's game a detriment in war. Unfortunately, that's not what players like the ones in this thread's example are doing. There is neither challenge nor honor in defeating weaker opponents who stand no chance of defending against a stronger enemy.

I understand it's becoming more & more of an, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" situation for engineering. Imagine for a moment, if MM was flipped to pay a whole lot of attention to offensive strength & mostly ignored defenses. We'd see bases with th3 troops & max defenses that would wreak havoc on the MM system. As much as I'd enjoy the anguished squawking from the engineers, it would be just as bad for fair wars.

I'm waiting to see how SC addresses the issue. I'm hoping they'll look at some kind of serious weight kickers for certain high value upgrades that are the offensive equivalent of maxed xbows & inferno towers. My guess is they want to preserve the value of upgrading troops ahead of defenses, without it being taken to extremes. No one questions the fact that certain defenses have a dramatic effect on war weight. There's no reason not to treat offenses the same way.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - there's only one way to truly deal with the inequality that this kind of engineering (x.5, defenseless, etc) introduces. That is to have a base war weight for each TH. It's not so much an issue of a clan having one or two games like this...it's that there are so many clans engineering their roster such that half their roster games the matchmaking algorithm. I really don't see how SC can do anything to deal with it otherwise; every other solution will still allow things like x.5 to take center stage (and that's what we have here). I think SC's spot on about how they weight offensive capabilities and I think it would work just fine if they simply made it so a TH10 scores as a TH10 rather than looking like a TH8. Minimum war weight by TH would end these debates.

[NeverMor3]

I understand it's becoming more & more of an, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" situation for engineering. Imagine for a moment, if MM was flipped to pay a whole lot of attention to offensive strength & mostly ignored defenses. We'd see bases with th3 troops & max defenses that would wreak havoc on the MM system. As much as I'd enjoy the anguished squawking from the engineers, it would be just as bad for fair wars.

I'm waiting to see how SC addresses the issue. I'm hoping they'll look at some kind of serious weight kickers for certain high value upgrades that are the offensive equivalent of maxed xbows & inferno towers. My guess is they want to preserve the value of upgrading troops ahead of defenses, without it being taken to extremes. No one questions the fact that certain defenses have a dramatic effect on war weight. There's no reason not to treat offenses the same way.

Thats exactly how MM used to be until one of the more recent updates where more emphasis was placed on defensive levels because people were doing exactly what you described. I think the effects of that change are being felt now because people have had enough time to build/engineer new or existing bases to take advantage of the MM algorithm.

One easy switch would be to change the MM alorigthm every 3 months from what it is now to what it used to be, then after 3 months switch it back. The advantage would bounce back and forth between offensively heavy and defensively heavy accounts but it would probably push more people to run balanced bases on both offense and defense. I just dont think the MM system can be tweaked in a way to take away the .5 advantage, which as it's been pointed out helps in war but hurts base progression/loot retention.

I think the biggest thing people overlook is hero and wall levels, its such a task to grind them out especially at th9 many skip it, and then struggle, or watch their base get smashed by someone who invested the time, which IMO for the time spent is how it should be.

[ryan1707]

Wrong.

Read what was written at reply #170.

According to his breakdown
#3 is rushed and weak heros
#4 is a strong 9.5
#5 is a mid 9.5
#6 is a mid 9.5
#7 rushed 9.5
#8 decent th9
#9 rushed 10

#10-15 are all weak and push overs

So 1-2 are negated by your 1-2. They have an advantage at the #4 spot but other than that seems like a cake walk.
Mid level 9.5s carry almost zero advantage because they cant 3 star higher than th9 but still easy 3 star for a th9.

[Jay147]

Should war be simply about attacking, or is the strategy of base building, knowledge of war weight, obtaining players with the right weight bases etc, also play a part??

IMO This is the right question. My answer would be YES up to a certain point. However there is the danger in the future that all wars will be won or lost before they are fought. If engineering is allowed to be a part of the game then all the matchmaking rules should be out in the open for everybody to know and to see IN GAME. Not just for the happy few who have figured it out. Advanced tools should be available in game. Level the playing field one way or another. Next level matchmaking. I would also like to suggest next level recruiting tools in game.

[RagingKoala]

I dare you to whisper "TangoFever" or "OrangeMojo" three times in this forum...

Tango down!!!! At least temporarily, mojo's still going strong though.

[ChiefTuk]

And for the folks who say no one ever complains about a mismatch in their favor, in our last war we had an opponent with a bunch of th9s who dropped & upgraded xbows, but had early th8 war troops, except for the top 2. Most of our guys across from them on the map were 8.5s with the 4th tesla & AD. If they'd at least had max th8 troops, I wouldn't have felt as badly, but those guys got hammered.

That was a very rare case. Most of the time we might have 1 more th9 than our opponents or there's a rushed th9. Usually the troops are close to even & our higher th8.5s are almost always facing full th9s across the map. Both sides should have something close to the same chances in war, IMO.

[orangemojo]

Tango down!!!! At least temporarily, mojo's still going strong though.

tango banned? oh no! what will we do without the master of clan war weight?

[redgreen]

this thread

♥♥♥♥ now opponents are called strategically rushed LOL

ladies ladies....you are commenting a match between a high level modding clan vs a rushed/noob one

who do you think is gonna win huh?

in all seriousness...please enlighten me...are these rushers high level modders? if not forget match is over...ws continues

[SmurfKick]

I think most of the engineered accounts that are being used to get easy wars have rather less than max TH9 defense. Being a TH10.5 is helpful, but you're not getting nearly as skewed matchups.

Most of the really lopsided accounts were gemmed, not farmed. For people with the willingness to pay, the cost of the defenses is minimal.

I have no information regarding whether or not engineered accounts are largely/mostly gemmed or not. I know that I've built one without gemming. I'm working on a second too. Frankly, they're rather easy to build when you're not having to stockpile gold for defenses you aren't building... there is literally zero real grind with those accounts.

But to your other point, it's not important the degree to which you engineer. If you're a TH8, and you go TH9 and do nothing but add camps and spells, you've done yourself a favor. If you're TH9 and go TH10, the same is true. Just stop building defenses, wherever you're at.

[ChiefTuk]

I've said it before and I'll say it again - there's only one way to truly deal with the inequality that this kind of engineering (x.5, defenseless, etc) introduces. That is to have a base war weight for each TH. It's not so much an issue of a clan having one or two games like this...it's that there are so many clans engineering their roster such that half their roster games the matchmaking algorithm. I really don't see how SC can do anything to deal with it otherwise; every other solution will still allow things like x.5 to take center stage (and that's what we have here). I think SC's spot on about how they weight offensive capabilities and I think it would work just fine if they simply made it so a TH10 scores as a TH10 rather than looking like a TH8. Minimum war weight by TH would end these debates.

I have no idea how many people are out there putting full TH10s with 200 camp space & level 4 spell factories in wars, but I'm sure there are some. I think it's much more common around th6-8, where people haven't gotten wise to the game, yet. It makes more sense to look at the things that actually make a difference than a blanket TH weight. It's not that much harder to calculate based on 240 camps & a level 5 spell factory than simple TH levels.

I really don't see .5 as a huge problem. I may be biased, but it's a also a sensible upgrade path that can be accommodated by styles of play besides maxxing. I wouldn't be surprised to see some weight coming back to war troops. I don't see how your TH weight idea does anything to put a diminish .5 bases, anyway.