[Master] šŸ›” Alternate Defence / Raid Formations -- Feedback & Discussion Thread (Polls in post #2)

You mean for defense. Because ares, khaghan affect allies, and they are even more useless now as you need all VF heroes and a good starting board to win against some defenses.
I think a good fix for some of the frustrations might be to change the way Mana works for each formation. Keep it the same for standard, lower it a bit for double and reverse double, and a little bit more for the reverse formation. I donā€™t think it would take too big a change, but it is something to consider.
The reverse formation is quite tough. Very rng dependant. Like VF wars. Not so much fun at the upper levels.
Another thing that you could ignore entirely as it would involve work that doesnā€™t include a portal, is to add extra conditions to raid rolling. If you are lower level, try to match based on that rather than just cups. Reward players for punching above their weight, and not punish them by facing 4800 reverse formations.

I see where you are coming from! But I do believe they have tweaked the attack power. devs maybe gathering data to tweak heroes again whilst testing these formations.

I donā€™t have a fat roster, so the W formation helped me to bring some heroes back to my defense, after some tests this formation gave me much more victories than losses, my current team is Lianna, Vanda, Neith, C. Richard and Marjana, soon Kingston will be in the Liannaā€™s place, now some heroes like Zulag are more useful with this new optionsā€¦

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Yeah I was thinking more for defense. Of course the trade off for the attacking team is that now hit 3ā€™s can hit all when targeting the right person. So it does have some benefit for both teams. Drake can now blind the whole defense team rather than just three if he hits the number 3 position in Double and Rev Double formations.

Iā€™ve been opening raid chests in diamond for almost a year, havenā€™t opened a single one in diamond since these formations came out.

Just another gamemode for lategamers and players with deep benches, everyone else isnā€™t even part of consideration. You want to really watch people leave this game? Put this crap in wars.

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After playing about 16 months, and spending a little, I have only 18 fully leveled 5*. My HA is complete, but Iā€™ve left my defense as regular because itā€™s still keeping me ~2600 overnight most of the time :woman_shrugging:

Thereā€™s a post in the formations strategy thread that mentions a lot of synergies of various 5* formations. I donā€™t have a single one of the 5s mentionedā€¦ Raid Formations Meta Discussion about Heroes and New Synergies - #69 by Sternman

All this is backstory for: formations is the only change Iā€™ve liked, other than friendly raids, in months. TOL, Ninja tower, Mythic Titan are all tedious for me. I donā€™t have the roster depth to just wing it so I spend way too much time planning.

Iā€™ve found the new formations to be a fun challenge. Iā€™ve enjoyed trying new combinations. Although Iā€™ve found some of my old combinations still work pretty well.

Iā€™m not sure how I feel about it in war. Iā€™m wondering if it should be implemented that everyone has to use the same formation instead of each person choosingā€¦ :woman_shrugging:

I do hope when we finish this ā€œglobal betaā€ that it gets implemented in a way accessible to more people. Maybe in the watchtower instead of HA. Also the watchtower is not locked out while itā€™s being leveled.

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I was mentioning the obvious extreme synergies and many of the heroes I face raiding.

The formations DO breath new life into many of the SI heroes. The synergies are less extreme because the specials have fewer components to them.

A Double formation with #2 / 3 / 4 filled with Justice / Sartana / Richard could do some real damage, even if it isnā€™t as exciting as the Ninjas. With costumes the SI heroes are both more robust AND faster so the average and slow heroes are easily one tile faster which can be the fine difference that decides the battle.

A Reverse Double with a front row of Kadilen / Khagan / Domitia ought to be effective as well.
(Khagan at slow probably needs the Reverse Double so he is fed three columns, in the Double with only one column many allies will be dead by the time he fires at slow mana). I BELIEVE that Khagan is one of the SI heroes to be most benefitted in defense by formations, but ONLY Reverse Double.

The key thing that formations change is how many heroes are now charging more rapidly.

I personally think it would be interesting to see a sniper Reverse formation.

Marjana / Lianna / Kadilen / Joon / Sartana

The two more robust snipers on the edge, the more delicate two inside and Kadilen in middle to protect vs special skills and clear the wounded off the battlefield.

Formations are a puzzle, just gotta figure out what combos shine with the heroes on your bench.

Is not that Iā€™m only missing in defenses though. Iā€™m missing out on better loots everytime I canā€™t get a diamond chest. Iā€™m attacked overnight and lose cupsā€¦ When I try to revenge I face an impossible reverse defense. Iā€™m missing out on the joy of defeating teams technically stronger. I could win with bad boards before. Not anymore.
And these new defenses are not just about heroes dynamics. The tile game is much harder, which always benefits the defense team.

I think the people here in the forum forget that not everyone has been year since the beginning of E&P and those people deserve to enjoy the game as well. And again, for something that is beta the amount of reroll I need to do to escape new formations tells me most people around platinum/diamond have it.

And no, as others suggested, Iā€™m not one that plays mono. Each fight has itā€™s own requirements but I only even use 3 of the same colour usually to get PoV sorted.

But fine obviously Iā€™m in the wrong here and all you super players are all happy because you can go and kick the younger ones out of diamond League. Have fun.

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The other option for @EmpiresPuzzles to consider is to make the new Raid formations only available for one week every month or so.

That may help address longer term problems associated with the new formations being more difficult for many players, and still introduce some variety into raid arena.

Perhaps adding a small reward for players who finish in Top 100, Diamond, Platinum, etc for that week.

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They way everyone around here seems to think that S1 5*s just fall out of the sky proves how broken this forum is. This is why normal players stay away from here, their experience in this game is just roundly dismissed by players whoā€™ve never even seen the game from the other side. Youā€™ve been here a long time? You spent more money than youā€™re willing to admit? Maybe take a moment to realize that you might be the majority on the forum but youā€™re the minority in the game.

18 maxed 5* in 16 months? Iā€™ve been playing 16 months also, have spent a lot more than ā€œa littleā€ and have ten maxed 5*, just two of each color (and two of those were nerfed into riding the bench most of the time). I have no surplus of mats, and only four more 5* waiting. Your experience sounds incredibly lucky to me, many of us with as much time under our belt couldnā€™t try new hero combinations if we wanted to.

I appreciate the emphasis on S1 but many of us still donā€™t have these heroes, personally I have half of what you mentioned, and only getting one every three or four months doesnā€™t mean Iā€™ll be up to speed any time soon. Maybe by the time Iā€™ve been here 2 years I can build a team that holds diamond again?

Not to mention, building a defense team is only half of it, it takes a wider and stronger bench to attack these formations too. Best skills, best survivability, all of it is different from the roster weā€™ve been cultivating so long. And S1 attacking S3 defenses in new formations is a bigger tile fest than running mono, youā€™ve got 5 turns to make something happen before heroes start dying (6 tops) because nothing from the S1 world can take more than 2 hits from S3.

I would rather see the raid arena split into two, those who can/want to use new formations and those who canā€™t/donā€™t. The already blatant advantage that ā€œyou can face new formations even if you donā€™t have HAā€ is bad enough, but beyond that itā€™s just a huge layer of extra challenge that many of us donā€™t need - things were challenging enough already, and heaping more onto everyone because the top 5% need something to keep them interested is a spit in the eye.

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Thanks @Dudeious.Maximus

i do have to say, it feels like an unlevel playing field to have to face formations when you donā€™t have access to them yourself. I raid high platinum, almost into diamond, but i have zilch for defense and plenty for attack. itā€™s the way things go i guess. but i like the challenge of formations. iā€™m not against them.

What gets me is people complaining that the sky is falling, when from where i stand, the weather looks just fine.

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Itā€™s a neat feature. my defense wins more, but i notice that i lose alot more when attacking. I donā€™t like that it makes it harder to complete the raid chest

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So, I will post an unpopular opinion, I havenā€™t seen much change with respect to winning, or losing. My defense is slightly changed with a double formation and it seems to hold up slightly better with more wins before.
As for attacks, my winning percentage is not changed much. Basically, I get good boards, I win; bad boards and I lose. Strategy hasnā€™t changed much, I pick 3 against one of the leading tanks, if I guess wrong color, it goes bad. But that isnā€™t noticeably different than before.

I donā€™t think the formations make the raids harder, but the low and mid level players are affected.

My alt account is around 4200 TP with no HA and hangs out between 2300-2400 cups. The formations are challenging but not insurmountable with different strategies. And I donā€™t think it not having the ability to change formation is a huge barrier to raiding.

The issue is more with the matchmaking. Not sure if itā€™s the strong teams dropping because of formations, but Iā€™ve had to re-roll more because I get matched with 4600+ teams even at 2300 cups. Filling the Wanted : Heroes chest takes longer or requires more ham and flasks. Maybe some form of compensation or lower requirements for the Wanted : Heroes chest for those without HA for the duration of the Beta?

Sorry if I sounded dismissive I really didnā€™t mean it that way. I can appreciate your frustration. I know Iā€™ve had my moments over the years of being ready to toss my phone against a wall while playing. On my end Iā€™m enjoying the new challenges the raid formations create since raids no longer feel same ole same ole anymore.
I do hope their data shows a need to open it up to you and others when it is finally released though so everyone can experiment with their defenses.

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I couldnā€™t speak to that. Generally I am still around the 2500 level, but have noticed lower trophy players raiding me, which is why I notice losing 50 trophies in a shot. Again, canā€™t tell if it is more often than before, or just something I noticed now.

Yeah, and this is just from the perspective of one F2P side account. SG obviously has the stats from all the players so they can query their DB and figure out if it really imbalances raiding, and what tweaks need to be made

Yes, l love it. This feature brought much needed diversity into defense META. And also in attacking formations. Since there is no obvious tank position anymore stacking doesnā€™t work as it used to. So l have to use different heroes for same teams just with different formation. Si in my opinion this feature made game interesting again. Harder but more fun.

Totally agreed. Had my eposode with mono strategy for a month and there were 3 consequences:

  1. The game boils down to board manipulation and finding 2-3 favourable matches. Battles usually donā€™t last long.

  2. I ended up using the same 30 heros most of the time. It changes only if I level something new.

  3. A lot of heros are not suited well for mono, and I was reluctant to level them. It severly constrainted strategic part of the game.

So, I moved back to 3-2, 2-2-1, and in rush attacks often 2-1-1-1. Tbh, I have much more fun now, and if we look at wars, with better success rate. New formations encourage this strategic approach so itā€™s a win-win situation for me. :slight_smile:

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Just to clarify. My issue is not with the feature itself. Is how this beta is so widely available that affects negatively too many players. Test it with the usual testers here then make it available to everyone. Or to 10000 accounts randomly. Right now or until is rolled out to everyone, itā€™s not fair game.
But at the same time I see SG doing loads of money in VIP passes and be like ā€˜yass our plan workedā€™ $$$

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