I get what you are saying, but it also benefits you on your defense…
It is just to make it a bit more interesting.
Yeah but you can’t fill hero chests from defense. And I don’t want raiding to be more difficult. I don’t need to win defensive raids as much as I need to win offensive raids.
I think this would thrive as a random war option, just like the 3 defensive buffs we have now. Each war would be standard, reverse V, or W formation. Messing with the raid system seems likely to cause problems, but no reason we can’t do this for wars.
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Strongly disagree. It would be way worse in wars than the standard raiding system. As it is, the majority of players don’t have full benches of leveled heroes to make good use of all 6 flags. I see not one single good reason they should make attacking harder by messing with the defense formations.
But are alternate formations actually harder? A reverse V downplays the importance of a big tank. My guess is that A+ tanks like Guinevere, Ares and Kashhrek would be very weak in a reverse V.
The nice touch about using alternate formations for war is that it becomes mandatory and uniform.
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I’m just picturing every horizontal tile splashing hero and nearby enemies. Unable to put much damage through with a nice colour stacked attack team with tile damage. Would be doing less damage and charging more defensive heroes at once. No thanks.
As it stands, the wars are raids are becoming very boring. It’s the same old thing every day. This would at least shake it up enough to be fun. Recall how jaded people got farming season one over and over until Atlantis came out. Also - this would be a level field for both teams, so I see no way this would actually be harder. All those tanks that refuse to go down would be a lot easier to deal with actually, so the reverse would be true. It would be easier to get more wipes.
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I don’t think it needs to be shaken up… I’ve spent my 4 months playing this game building a roster to suit the current demands of the game. The last thing I need is for a wrench to be thrown in the game mechanics.
I really like the idea to incorporate defensive formations. Anything to add additional strategy and variety to raids would be a good thing. Perhaps it would be best to make it part of alliance wars first, if for nothing else than to make the raids and wars feel a bit more different.
Adding formations adds the possibility for some new powers in the next generation of characters:
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A defensive character that can cast a shield that adds massive defense, but only to the back row.
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A defense that protects the front row, but lowers rear defenders’ defenses
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a powerful offensive spell that only works on the front (or back) row
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a spell that randomly re-arranges an enemy formation (in addition to some lower level damage or healing)
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a high defense “bodyguard” character that can raise his own defense, but has to absorb all hits that would target the back row
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a spell that completely shields the back row from a specific element
What would make the game incredibly more interesting and versatile would be the possibility to choose the formation in that my heroes stand when attacked during raids or wars. Every formation would open a new world of tactics, so you can use more combinations of heroes in more interesting ways. Problem is the spread of gems / troops, who they hit and that you usually should allow each hero to be hit by at least one line of troops from the beginning, and therefore I would only allow three different choices.
I’m imagining the choice between:
- V-formation (¯-_-¯ that we have right now, Gems hitting 1 2 3 3 3 4 5)
- W-formation (¯-¯-¯ , Gems hitting 1 2 2 3 4 4 5)
- inverted V-formation ( ▁-¯-▁ , Gems hitting 1 1 2 3 4 5 5)
V-Formation: When you have one tank that should draw the most hits and fire most often, oftentimes used for slow heroes with devastating effects.
W-Formation: When you want an even spread, or you want a hero in the middle that is better protected and affects himself and the two beside him with a positive effect, like Kashrek or Magnus; who in turn protect him. Needs two tanks on the second and fourth position.
Inverted V: In the middle might be a sniper who gets loaded up over time as he’s hit by the middle line, but who won’t be killed so quickly. Same for the middle positions 2 and 4, but this needs two tanks on the 1st and 5th position, where the attacker can easily decide who to load.
From an implementation standpoint, this should be easily doable, as you find loads of formations when playing against the game. Of course the defenders formation has to be shown in raids and in wars, and in wars it would be good to see this already on the map without having to zoom in. But still, would make the game MUCH more interesting.
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Here is some food for thought regarding this feature request. The W-formation (in reverse, it is an M-formation) has a large, large weakness to splash damage attackers like Khaghan, Evelyn, Grimm, Scarlett and Buddy.
I found this while playing through season 2 maps, where enemies use the W-formation. If you target the enemy in the middle with a special skill that has splash damage, they can hit every single enemy.
To give a visual example, if I target the middle with Ramming Pulverizer, the bolded are the ones who take the damage and get the def- ailment:
V-formation: ¯ -_- ¯
inverted V-formation: _ -¯- _
W-formation: ¯-¯-¯
That’s right. The W-formation has a pretty clear weakness in this case; the game considers all enemies to be next to the middle. Hence, specials that hit “nearby enemies” means that in this formation, all the heroes will be hurt if the middle is targeted.
This is pretty important in terms of balance… and I think it provides an answer to a common question I see asked in this thread: “is adding alternate formations really that difficult?” It may not be difficult in terms of just implementing it, but I think I’ve illustrated a challenge in terms of game balance. It is pretty clear that already good heroes such as Evelyn and Gravemaker, would just become even better against the W-formation, unless the way splash damage rules work or what is considered a “nearby enemy” is modified.
I still voted for this feature because I do think it would add more strategic value to defending, and I do like the idea of making wars more interesting. Inverted V would shake things up for sure. But as it stands the W formation would not be very viable, so it’s something to consider for the devs who read through these feature requests.
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Agreed about the (il)logic of who is counted as “nearby”. As implemented it makes GM, Athena, etc. overpowered on these boards.
If you number five heroes left-to-right as 1 through 5, then i would consistently expect that a “nearby” attack aimed at #2 would affect #1 through #3. Etc.
The key difference to formations is who gets which columns of tiles at the opening. There are seven columns; let’s label these A through G. The V-formation has the following alignment
Hero 1: Hit by Column A, plus B if Hero 2 is dead
Hero 2: B, then C
Hero 3: C, D, & E
Hero 4: F, then E
Hero 5: G, then F
This table underscores why the tank is so central. A W-formation works well:
Hero 1: A, then B
Hero 2: B & C
Hero 3: D, then C & E
Hero 4: E & F
Hero 5: G, then F
In this formation heroes 2 and 4 take the brunt of the attack, but each only gets two columns of tiles dumped on them, instead of three in the classic V-formation. The heroes at the wings are unaffected; hero 3 initially only takes one column of tile damage, but eventually is open to all three central columns.
I can’t figure out how an M-formation could be laid out symmetrically other than:
Hero 1: A & B
Hero 2: C, then B
Hero 3: D
Hero 4: E, then F
Hero 5: F & G
which seems awkward, with that central hero forward and central but not a focus of most attacks. I suppose completely shielding 2 & 4 at the start, with 1 3 & 5 taking all the tile damge, could work, but that would be a big break with current design. Those rear heroes would fully shielded from tile damage but also unable to gain mana except through time-clicks.
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I don’t mind playing raids against more powerful opponents 80 to 90 percent of the time what I think would be more fair is if I had the option of choosing which opponent hero I could use my special powers against
Yes, there was a reason why I didn’t post about the M-formation, as while writing the post, I realized it wouldn’t work with game design. Still, having the option instead of the current V-formation to use a W-formation or the inverted V-formation would make the game incredibly more tactical in terms of defense design.
Of course hitting nearby enemies would only mean to hit the targeted hero and the next one left and right from him.
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Welcome to the forum @Stonewalley, you can tap on the opponents to highlight them, and highlighted heros will be targeted by your heros abilities.
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Currently when you fight in AW your hero lineup is always the same. The central tank dominates and protects the two flank heroes who in turn protect the two wing heroes. This is the same lineup we see all the time in the game. It is used for raids and titans, it is used when attacking monsters in the storyline levels. It has come to the point where for top alliances there is little variation anymore in wars. Everyone has a Guin tank.
On the other hand, the monsters that we face in the storyline levels use all kinds of different lineups. Even in the challenge events when you reach the last level the three heroes you face are lined up with the central hero behind the other two. In that lineup there is no “tank”. I think that AW could be enhanced greatly by changing the lineup used from war to war.
Instead of the current “V” lineup we could be using a reverse “V” where the wings are out front, or a “W” where the two flanks are tucked behind the tank and the wings, or a reverse “W” where the two flanks basically become dual “tanks”.
This would add another element to the strategies for AW and make each war unique instead of doing the same strategy over and over.
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This is a interesting idea. It would add all new strategies for the defenders. Reversing or a W format would mean less mana build for healers or whoever is on the back line.
However, it would also be a problem for lower level players who need all the help they can get to survive an on slaughter. Like the healer in front would die quickly while a healer in the back wouldnt get enough ‘hits’ to be beneficial in time.
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This is a very interesting take on defense. Every real life war had the use of different strategies to gain an edge. This would be no different. It could be a team choice of a certain set up of V, reverse V, W or reverse W. Great idea!
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Huh, I should have known there would be a thread on this somewhere. I just couldn’t find it before.
Maybe these different formations could be tried in the new raid challenge to start. We see variations on these all the time in the monsters we face in the different game levels so the programming should already exist.
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